Decolonial Participatory Action Research

Catalog description

In Indigenous contexts, participatory action research (PAR) is an increasingly standard research methodology. Involving community residents at every stage of the research process to facilitate radical democratic knowledge-production and social change, PAR holds much promise in allowing Indigenous peoples to set their own terms in research, and to ensure that the research serves to benefit-rather than misrepresent or extract from-their communities. Yet, without rigorously and meaningfully incorporating Indigenous epistemologies, cosmologies, and methodologies into PAR, it risks perpetuating the long-standing colonial damage that research continues to inflict on Indigenous peoples. In this hybrid (part-seminar, part-practicum) community-engaged class, students will learn about key concepts in designing decolonial PAR projects, while gaining hands-on experience with PAR through partnerships with the Oregon Pacific Islander Coalition (OPIC).