Intertwining the Personal, Relational, and Theoretical in Participatory Collaborative Analysis (Poster 1)

• In Event: Critical Participatory Inquiry in Transnational Research Contexts

Abstract

In this presentation, two undergraduate student participant-researchers and a research facilitator will reflect on how power dynamics and diverse positionalities impacted the process of collaborative analysis in the context of a participatory research project about the educational trajectories of first-generation-to-college, Latinx youth. The purpose of the presentation is to demonstrate how power and positionality impacted our individual experiences and the outcomes of a collaborative analysis workshop that Presenter 1 facilitated and in which Presenter 2 and Presenter 3 were student participant-researchers. This multi-perspectival reflection will offer insight into the logistics, challenges, and benefits of analyzing participant-produced data collaboratively.

We will first explain how our approach to collaborative analysis and participatory inquiry is grounded in a decolonial theoretical framework and in our own stories and identities, which are differently entangled with the colonial histories of transnational migration: Presenter 1 is a non-first-gen, non-Latinx, white adult researcher; Presenter 2 is a Bolivian-American, first-gen student participant researcher, and Presenter 3 is a Salvadoran-American, first-gen, student participant researcher. We will then describe our methods of engaging in collaborative analysis, including the logistical set-up of the collaborative analysis workshop under discussion in this presentation and the specific ways in which testimonios and interpersonal exchanges surfaced new theoretical, relational, and personal insights for each of us during this workshop. Drawing on various data sources, such as workshop recordings and reflective memos, we will discuss how differences in our epistemologies, relationships, and positionalities nuanced the concurrent processes of knowledge production, relational development, and personal growth during and after the workshop. We will explain how theoretical, relational, and personal outcomes emerged as we negotiated our individual roles and responsibilities within the participatory research project, and we will argue for the importance of recognizing and embracing all three as legitimate and valuable outcomes of participatory research, rather than solely focusing on the knowledge production outcomes that are legible to and valued by academic audiences.

By tracing these three types of outcomes through our own experiences during and after the collaborative analysis workshop, we will ultimately argue that embracing the theoretical, relational, and personal in the process of collaborative research can invoke decolonizing approaches to research by prioritizing self-determination, healing, and alternate ways of knowing. We believe this work holds significance for other participatory researchers who are interested in conducting collaborative analysis across the blurry lines delineating participant/researcher roles and across differing power dynamics and positionalities in the process of collective knowledge building.

Authors

• Bethany Monea, University of the District of Columbia

• Mikaela Pozo, George Mason University

• Joselyn Andrade, George Mason University