Methodological Alchemy

According to Maslow, “bare necessities” include food, water, clothing, sleep, and shelter. These resources, required to survive and satisfy our psychological safety needs, have been established as fundamental basic rights by the United Nations and the World Health Organization. Yet disparate access to basic necessities remains, reinforcing and reproducing a slow violence that places individuals […]

This work draws inspiration from photodocumentary style methods that represent interior lives and realities (e.g., LaToya Ruby Frazier, Carrie Mae Weems, Gordon Parks), particularly those that interrogate identity, positionality, and social narratives. We use Photovoice, photo elicitation, and media analysis to better contextualize a range of conditions and urban dilemmas (Photo Credit: LaToya Ruby Frazier, 2016, Flint as Family)

CPAR includes a range of epistemological, ethical, and methodological perspectives committed to “research with” (rather than “on”) communities. Above all, this approach requires a level of humility, reflexivity, and awareness that communities often have the knowledge to address pressing problems in their communities, even if they lack structural power and resources to change those realities (Photo: People’s Kitchen, BPP Mutual Aid Initiative)