A Posthumanist Analysis of Youth Participatory Action Research During Times of Ecological and Racial Crisis

• In Event: From Crisis to Possibility: Innovations in Culturally Responsive Methodologies

Abstract

Youth participatory action research (YPAR) is often understood as an epistemological project that centers knowledge production by youth. However, less work has been done to examine and embrace YPAR as an inherently unpredictable and untidy space shaped by nature and chance. In this paper, we engage in a posthumanist inquiry to examine how a community-based YPAR initiative was entangled with the spread of COVID-19 and the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, among many other Black victims of police brutality. Findings point to new understandings of YPAR during times of ecological and racial crisis as well as new possibilities for applying posthumanist inquiry to YPAR and embracing the unpredictable and contradictory as inherent aspects of participatory research.

Authors

• Lee Melvin Madayag Peralta, Michigan State University

• Joanne E. Marciano, Michigan State University

• Ji Soo Lee, Michigan State University