Review on proposal + 4 sample chapters by Michelle Fine, Professor, City University of New York, USA
This volume seeks to fill an important gap in the literature on participatory action research by attending particularly to the complex dynamics of Black researchers working with/in/alongside Black communities. Even more intriguing, the volume is situated around three key case studies, in Senegal, Philadelphia/Delaware and New Orleans, all sites of colonial and corporate reach, disinvestment and deep historic racism and struggle. There have been many books and chapters written about PAR projects on/in Black communities; what is outstanding, unique and promises to be most provocative about this project is the critical commitment to
(a) reflexivity within and across Black researchers and participants; (b) honest dialogue about the knotty relations of universities and communities, and (c) explicit attention to intersectionality and the delicate dance of power that occurs within community based research.
Four distinct features of the volume suggest enormous promise and wide readership:
Critical reflexivity within Black-Black research relationships
Deep local ethnographies in communities that are at once 'sexy' destinations for tourists/investors, and deeply disinvested by the state and federal economy
Timely attention to university-community relations just at a moment when the colonial histories of universities 'strip mining' the knowledge of communities are being called to question,
And
Critical inquiry into the politics and praxis of schooling at times of privatization and radical transformation of public k-12 and higher education - especially in post-Katrina New Orleans and Philadelphia.
I am also quite encouraged by the organization of the volume: by site and then distinct voices within site. The inclusion of cautionary tales, power dynamics, moments of racial solidarity and splitting, renders this an important text.
From the materials sent I would encourage Palgrave to pursue this volume. I believe it will have readership in undergraduate, graduate and community courses on participatory methods, inter-group and intra-group relations, k - 12 education, higher education, service learning and courses on race/ethnicity and the African(a) diaspora.
I also have some questions/thoughts provoked by the volume that the writers and authors may want to consider. I list those below.
Framing:
I very much appreciate the complexity of both the opening and closing chapters. While I am of course not very familiar with the three sites (although I very much look forward to reading the final volume)_ it seems as though it would be important to situate this book within three distinct, and intersecting literatures
First there is the growing literature on community based research - ethics, practices, service learning, public scholarship and participatory action research. AT base, these are studies conducted in that lineage.
Second there is a growing question of the precarity, role and function of the university in public life - in terms of research 'of use,' relations with community and whether or not the university as we have known it is a sustainable design.
Third there is the literature on 'race', strategic essentialisms and within group conflict/solidarities.
This volume IS A FIRST in bringing these questions of university structure, community based research and the politics of race/white supremacy and inequality gaps, directly into conversation. These writers will be extending the work of Patricia Hill Collins who writes on the outsider into the field of community based research.
Conclusions:
Again, I obviously haven't read the book. But the following conceptual areas seem significant for analysis in the conclusion of the book:
Black racial solidarities in research practice and the haunting threats of power and intersectionality
The long painful history of universities and communities of co
