Critical Mixed Methods Research, or CMMR, is a transformative method that integrates Critical Race Theory (CRT) with mixed-methods designs. Moreover, CMMR departs from MMR by relying on the tenets of CRT and using community-driven and community-led (e.g., emic) approaches to address complex research questions. Importantly, CMMR is facilitated by critical reflexivity, critical inquiry, and justice-forward goals. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods, mixed-methods research is also distinct from multiple-methods research, enabling researchers to achieve a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of social phenomena.

The CH+SE Urban Living Lab uses a CMMR approach to build and maintain authentic community partnerships, understand pressing issues facing the community (e.g., Appreciative Inquiry), and works alongside (and behind) community members to help raise awareness and draw resources to the work already underway on the hyperlocal level (e.g., in churches, among community groups).

Methods used in partnership with community members and organizations include: in-depth qualitative interviews, walking methods, neighborhood/environmental audits, diary methods, focus groups, oral histories, Photovoice and photo elicitation, surveys, body mapping, project co-design, radical imagining using VR, wearable sensing, soundscape analysis, media analysis, arts-based methods, and participatory mapping. There is no single method that can fully capture the social realities of the lived experience. Using what I term “methodological alchemy” to underscore the convergent, holistic, and transformative nature of CMMR, this interdisciplinary research is supported by a range of person-centered and system-conscious theoretical frameworks.