Weaving Futures Together: Building Research through Relational Accountability

• In Event: Truth and Healing in California: Land, Education, and the Remembering, Restorying, Reclaiming Project

Abstract

How can research move beyond extraction to become a process of collective healing, restorying, and community resurgence? This presentation centers the participatory action research (PAR) methodology that grounds the RRR project. Rather than treating community engagement as a checkbox, RRR begins and ends with relational accountability, where research is conducted not on Tribal communities, but with and for them. Spanning multiple university campuses and Tribal Nations, RRR builds participatory structures that position Tribal leaders, students, elders, and faculty as co-researchers. From shaping research questions to interpreting findings, Native voices are central at every phase. These relationships are not transactional. They are rooted in shared histories, ethical responsibilities, and a desire for transformation that emerges from within communities.

PAR, in this context, becomes a living methodology. It weaves together memory work, policy critique, and everyday acts of care. Whether through institutional data scans, community interviews, or archival inquiry, RRR foregrounds Tribal presence, local knowledge, and a commitment to return the research in meaningful ways. This presentation explores how PAR challenges academic hierarchies and invites a shift toward reciprocity, slowness, and trust. It honors the labor of Tribal collaborators who shape not only the research outcomes but also the epistemologies guiding the work. It also names the tensions between institutional urgency and intergenerational timelines—revealing the stakes of doing this work with integrity. In the spirit of unforgetting, participatory action research becomes more than a method. It is a practice of remembrance, a pathway to justice, and a weaving of futures—rooted in accountability to the past and seeded with Indigenous presence, care, and possibility.

Author

• Patricia D. Quijada Cerecer, University of California - Davis