“I am not your data, nor am I your vote bank,

I am not your project, or any exotic museum object,

I am not the soul waiting to be harvested,

Nor am I the lab where your theories are tested.”

~abhay xaxa

As a community organizer and community-driven rebel researcher, I believe in introducing indigenous, decolonized, antiracist, community-owned research and design justice practices in academia, governments, and non-profit spaces. I have included research guides and resources here. Please contact me if you would like to co-design and dream up research collaborations or consultations together.

My colleagues and I at Boston Unversity’s Center for Antiracist Research created this research guide with frameworks and principles rooted in abolition and healing justice.
I created this community-centered design toolkit that includes methodologies, frameworks, case studies, and resources around how to avoid human-centered design and implement decolonized research, policy, advocacy, and narrative processes.
My team and I at Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research presented on how to center community voice in authentic research and policy advocacy practices.

MIT’s Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality Department hosted its 2025 conference, “Liberatory Practices for a World in Crisis,” where I spoke about the centering of community voice and lived experience in our public systems as one step towards abolitionist futures.
Alongside my colleagues at Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, I spoke about rebel research practices and how to shift away from human-centered design and towards community-owned research.