Restorative Justice Community Dialogue Project: Conflict Resolution and Racial Healing in West Philadelphia

• In Event: "It’s a West Philly Thing": Conversations With Intergenerational Community-Driven Civic Action Research Collectives Pursuing Justice

Abstract

With communal and trauma-informed approaches being critical factors in repairing community harm, individuals from marginalized communities often face additional barriers to foster conflict transformation, reconciliation, and healing (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1978; Carspecken, 1996; Habermas, 1984; Yosso, 2005). Studies focused on restorative justice and the indigenous tradition of community dialogue in which everyone involved and immediately impacted by a situation comes together to seek a resolution provides further evidence of the importance of developing culturally responsive collaborations between communities and local schools along the P-20 educational continuum. The purpose of this proposal is to present the findings of a cross-sector collaborative participatory action research project of a critical qualitative phenomenological case study of a community-engaged and community-led partnership between a private university and the local Philadelphia community in an urban northeastern Pennsylvania context in order to foster racial justice, equity, and inclusion. This study posits the use of participatory and civic action research to take an asset-based approach to empower communities through dialogue and conflict resolution.
1. Research Question 1: What are the community-identified needs and concerns surrounding racial justice, equity, and inclusion in West Philadelphia?
2. Research Question 2: How can findings help guide the development of culturally sustaining, asset-based dialogue and conflict transformation trainings for West Philadelphia residents?
The conceptual framework for this project involves the overlap of two theoretical frameworks. We combine intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989) with participatory culture theory (Jenkins, 2006) to demonstrate the critical importance of the work that community leaders do in advancing reconciliation amidst social unrest. These two concepts synthesize the notion of community members in regions shared with university institutions who are qualified to facilitate restorative justice efforts and lay the theoretical grounding for this study.

The current study was taken from a larger qualitative investigation of restorative justice practices in junction with community dialogue. This project is a Community-led Participatory Action Research (CPAR) design (Torre et al., 2012). CPAR is dynamic and involves community generated and executed problem identification, research and plan development, collection and analysis of evidence, reflection on the findings, sharing of results, and taking action to address the problem (Burns, et al., 2012).

The data includes eight semi-structured interviews ranging in 45-60 minutes which were conducted by two community members virtually using the technological software Zoom. The interviews were then transcribed, reviewed, and coded through holistic-content and thematic analysis from the diverse and intergenerational research team (Lieblich, et al., 1998; Bloomberg & Volpe, 2008). The participants in this study were 8 Black/African American community residents of Mantua ages 20-80 (5 women and 3 men).

This study identifies four types of themes with regards to community members’ concerns surrounding racial justice, equity, and inclusion in their community: (1) systemic and institutional racism; (2) individual biopsychosocial impacts; (3) collective impact or marginalized communities; and (4) sustainability, transparency, and allyship. Our CPAR design centers the importance of dialogue and communication in a hyper-local and culturally sustaining (Paris, 2012) way as we interrogate traditional conflict resolution practices that universities and communities often employ.

Author

• Rebecca Rose Metzger, Drexel University