A Malverde approach to research: An analysis of the redistribution of labor and resources in a participatory design music study

• In Event: Disrupting Deficit Logics: Centering Community Knowledge in the Design of Educational Research

Abstract

Jesús Malverde, a popular folk saint from Sinaloa, México, is a figure known for stealing from the rich in order to give to the poor. This Robin Hood-like figure was well-loved in the working class community where I grew up because of his commitment to a redistribution of wealth that benefited the poor. This commitment has made Malverde a longstanding icon across the working class, well before his recent notoriety as the saint revered by narcotraficantes. In this presentation, I turn to my own position as chicana from a Sinaloense family to question what it can look like to be a ‘Malverde researcher’, drawing on examples from a participatory design research study (PDR) (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016) with a community-based music collective.

Conceptualized as both a theory and a method, PDR upholds commitments to humanizing and transformative research through its attention to how the process of partnering—and the forms of learning that emerge in these partnerships—is shaped by critical historicity, power, and relational dynamics (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016). In this presentation I discuss my own role as both a researcher and a participant in a six-year PDR partnership with a collective in Northern California dedicated to developing participatory, community-based classes around the fandango (a popular folk music practice from what is now Veracruz, México). I examine the relational dynamics in this PDR partnership by using a Malverde theoretical lens to analyze how a research partnership dedicated to the redistribution of labor and resources can serve to disrupt normative research power dynamics.

Guided by the belief that relationality and connectedness should be woven throughout our work, writing, and practice instead of siloed into a standalone positionality statement (de los Ríos & Patel, 2023), I discuss how my own upbringing has shaped shaped my community-engaged methodological approach, and how my own positionality as a Chicana Sinaloense has led me to Malverde as an ethical, methodological framework. Recognizing my role as both a researcher and practitioner, I position this analysis within PDR’s approach to research that calls for theoretical and analytical lenses that stem from our communities of practice (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016).

By discussing how supporting the co-design of community music workshops entailed developing bilingual educational programming, expanding community outreach through technological tools, building and repairing instruments, and securing grants for additional funding, I highlight how resources and labor were repositioned to fall primarily on the research institution rather than on the community. In doing so I suggest that being a ‘Malverde researcher’ requires recognizing how our positionality as university-affiliated educational researchers opens up access to resources that can be leveraged and redistributed in ways that do not put the burden of cost on the community. I also discuss the intentionality behind engaging participatory and community-based design-based research methods (e.g. Bang et al., 2016; Bang & Vossoughi, 2016; Gutiérrez, 2018; Gutiérrez & Jurow, 2016) that focus on offering educational resources for the community in the form of researchable educational interventions that engage the community’s expressed needs through transformative research.

Author

• Yared Portillo, University of California - Berkeley