Beyond the Walls: Community-Generated Radical Afro-Diasporic Research

• In Event: 66.015 - "With and For" Not "On" or "About": Engaging the Limits of Education Research for Movement-Building

Abstract

Traditionally, empirical research and the generation of theory has been a practice monopolized by the academy leaving those being theorized about on the outside looking in. But as Dr. James Turner stated in his 2011 address to the 35th Annual National Council of Black Studies Conference: “If that theory doesn’t relate to empirical lived conditions, and verified by the facts on the ground then you’re simply sitting there talking to yourself and the walls.” Too often, unidirectional academic theory, particularly when focused on communities of African descent in the U.S., only accomplishes this problematic end. “Black Children’s Development Network” (BCDN), an African-centered family education center in St. Paul, MN, is attempting to disrupt the traditional perceptions of theory generation by asserting their own claims to the generation of theory based on relational ways of being within local Twin Cities’ communities of African descent.

The purpose of this paper is to explicate the ways in which community-based educational institutions can systematically generate empirical research and functional theory that has the ability to translate to policy and practice in both formal and informal educational spaces. BCDN’s assertion is that there is a historic asymmetry in the relationship between the academy and communities of African descent that has contributed to the continuing miseducation of black youth. While they address the historical context of the disproportionate voice that the academy has had in determining educational outcomes for black youth, their purpose is to provide a methodological approach to community-based theory production based on tracing the modes of inquiry that have been used throughout the Afrodiasporic world, and in the localized context of Afrodiasporic communities in the Twin Cities. The purpose of the paper is threefold: 1) The paper outlines the broader purposes of radical Afrodiasporic, which are typically different and often in conflict with that of academia; 2) The paper explores the structural design of BCDN as a learning organization that uses intentional, iterative processes to conduct community-based inquiry, and; 3) Building from the second purpose, the paper outlines what BCDN’s community-generated Afrodiasporic research methodology entails.

The significance of presenting such a paper at AERA speaks directly to this year’s theme, exploring how knowledge and action are always embedded in context. Shifting the control of research from the academy to community spaces entails a shift in how knowledge and action are understood. For academic researchers to understand the implications of taking a secondary role to community-based researchers challenges them to rethink their own conceptions of the symbiotic relationship between knowledge and action. This paper works through multiple examples of how community framing of issues challenged academic framings of the same issue, resulting in different forms of action that had more impactful outcomes for community members and BCDN constituents.

Author

• Brian Lozenski, Macalester College