For the Institution or for the Community?: Towards an Anti-Oppressive Research Praxis in Conducting Participatory Action Research

Background: Participatory Action Research (PAR) has the goal of co-creating and democratizing knowledge to inform individual and collective action. With this possibility, more researchers are using PAR methodology to collaborate with communities to critique and change societies. Yet inherent systemic oppression permeates the research process due to the racist, sexist, settler colonial, and neoliberal logics that have constructed higher education institutions in the U.S. However, photovoice, an arts-based method within the broader PAR landscape, provides an expansive lens for exploring community strengths and needs through the collection and analysis of photographs and group discussions with the purpose of social change. Current research demonstrates photovoice’s utility in inciting social change with and for communities, yet concerns arise over the lack of participant voices in the analysis, writing, and dissemination of the projects leaving us to question, “Is our research for the institution or for the community?”

Methods: This conceptual article extends PAR scholarship around ethical reflexivity by drawing on the lived experiences of two university researchers and two community researchers and their use of praxis across two separate photovoice research projects. We describe three key principles in conducting an anti-oppressive research praxis and conclude with implications for social work practice, research, and the community. These principles are grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT) in education which highlights that racism and other forms of subordination (e.g., sexism, classism, illegality, etc.) play a central role in the structure and practices of educational institutions. Therefore, a commitment to social justice in the context of research must center the lived experiences of marginalized people to be transformative.

Results: Through collective knowledge production, community and university researchers must develop a shared goal for movement toward action. However, without a deliberate and vigilant focus on anti-oppressive practices throughout the research process, university-derived PAR work can reproduce harm. As such this paper will present the 3 key principles for an anti-oppressive research praxis.: (1) creating awareness of inherent power structures; (2) actively disrupting power structures; and (3) embodying a transformative practice. The goal of these principles is to call on social work researchers to better understand and parse out the tension between their proximity to power in relation to and with communities.

Implications: Implications are grounded in community engagement strategies that highlight the necessity of active involvement of communities as they determine the direction of their lives. We align this to social work research that leverages PAR, which we argue is incomplete and extractive without community ownership of the project and their own narrative. Communities must be informed and encouraged to provide decisions on how findings are applied and disseminated because these are not just their stories but their lived realities, especially when inquiries also relate to oppressive experiences such as racism, sexism, and illegality.