“You Couldn't Have Done This Without Us": Sharing Power and Centering Spirit with Black Communities

• In Event: Critical Participatory Action Research for Us, by Us in U.S. Postsecondary Education

Abstract

An essential aspect of participatory action research (PAR) involves working collectively to enhance knowledge with communities that have been inadequately researched. While this expectation is conceptually powerful, the process of navigating power dynamics and building relationships between co-researchers and participants can prove challenging, particularly when engaging with Black communities As such, coupling principles of PAR with assumptions with endarkened feminist epistemology (Dillard, 2006; 2012), the authors (re)imagine and execute a research experience that successfully builds relationships, attends to power dynamics, and centers spirit – creating a richer Endarkened PAR experience for all.

While PAR methodology aims to center marginalized groups as experts in their own lives, we argue that due to Black communities’ experiences with historical trauma, researchers broadly, and higher education researchers specifically, interested in working with these communities must make a conscious effort to attend to power differences between those engaged in the work. Said differently, higher education researchers need to be more intentional in our research praxis due to the ways historically white institutions (HWIs) have enacted harm on Black communities.

Historically White Institutions (HWIs) have perpetuated racial hierarchies, exploiting Black Americans since their inception. During colonial times, the Civil War, and the twentieth century, these institutions benefited from the slave economy, using enslaved Africans to build and maintain campuses. Institutions like Harvard, Rutgers, Georgetown, and Emory have recently acknowledged their ties to slavery but have yet to make substantial systemic changes (Wilder, 2013). This lack of response fosters ongoing distrust in Black communities. Additionally, HWIs have a history of unethical medical research on Black individuals (Washington, 2006) and have excluded Black Americans from educational opportunities (Evans, 2008; Pratt, 2002), reinforcing white supremacy and sending negative messages to Black communities. The aftermath of these actions continues to affect Black communities today.

Whether harm materialized through enslavement or intentionally denying Black Americans access to their institutions, HWIs were/are complicit in creating a web of distrust with Black communities. HWIs, rooted in white supremacist capitalist patriarchal imperialism, enacted power over Black communities – controlling resources, decisions, and policies that had and still have material outcomes on Black communities today (Breeden et al., 2023; Cabrera, 2020). With this historical trauma in mind, academic researchers interested in collaborative research processes must be intentional with how we “exact, maintain, or withhold power in the research process” (Stewart, 2022, p. 163). Furthermore, researchers interested in engaging in transformative scholarship with Black communities must think creatively about how power manifests and work to rebuild partnerships that disrupt power dynamics in the research process.

Author

• Roshaunda L. Breeden, North Carolina State University