Resident experts: The potential of critical Participatory Action Research to inform public housing research and practice

Abstract

Policies affecting those living in poverty are often created without the direct and meaningful participation of the people meant to be served. This has been especially the case with public housing. To contextualize the need for alternative approaches to inquiry, we begin by examining the history of public housing through the lens of oppression and present critical Participatory Action Research as an alternative approach to research and policy-making. We provide a case study of a critical Participatory Action Research project sited in a public housing project slated for redevelopment. We conclude that engaging “resident experts” in the research process heightened the validity and credibility of the findings, amplified residents' self-determination, and provided greater congruence between the researchers' social justice values and our research methods.

Home Dispossession and Commercial Real Estate Dispossession in Tourist Conurbations. Analyzing the Reconfiguration of Displacement Dynamics in Los Cristianos/Las Américas (Tenerife)

“…Regarding the south of Tenerife, the dispersed distribution of peripheral working-class settlements, combined with a migrant population working in the tourism sector but only loosely rooted locally, is likely limiting the possibilities for social mobilization. Future research, therefore, should also aim to engage residents and those affected more actively in the research process, as this has proven to be a helpful means of promoting collective self-determination [115]. Critical geographic research, thus, has a central role to play in mobilizing the numerous people affected by the displacement of living and working space in the Canary Islands, who have not yet achieved a meaningful and resistant form of collective organization.…”

Confronting Gentrification: Can Creative Interventions Help People Keep More than Just Their Homes?

“…Seven were self-described as Participatory Action Research (PAR) projects. For example, four different projects involved residents of public or socialized housing conducting research in order to effect public policy (Darcy, 2013;Hodkinson & Essen, 2014;Sinha, 2013;Thurber, Collins, Greer, McKnight, & Thompson, 2018;Thurber & Fraser, 2016). Another took aim at commercial gentrification, engaging residents of a "major immigrant landing area" in studying the planned redevelopment of their community , p. 1299.…”

“…In three sites, residents of public and socialized housing organized for material and epistemic goals. They sought to prevent displacement of low-income residents while at the same time working to transform the deficit-based representations of their community that were used to legitimize displacement (Darcy, 2013;Sinha, 2013;Thurber, Collins, Greer, McKnight, & Thompson, 2018;Thurber & Fraser, 2016). In these three projects, community organizers partnered with academic researchers to help achieve their goals.…”

“…First, in all but one project, the authors provided evidence of the beneficial outcomes of the intervention. Those outcomes included: raising neighbors' collective consciousness about gentrification and the processes of neighborhood change Drew, 2012;McClean, 2014;McLean2014b;Thurber & Fraser, 2016;Thurber, 2018), strengthening relationships among residents (Chidester & Gadsby, 2009;Thurber, Collins, Greer, McKnight, & Thompson, 2018;Thurber, in press), and transforming residents' relationships to place (Somdahl-Sands, 2008;Thurber, 2018).…”

“…Interventions that engaged residents as artists, teachers, and researchers had the additional benefit of democratizing knowledge production. This has both individual effects, as residents increasingly value their own knowledge and abilities to theorize Drew, 2008;McLean 2014), and community-level effects, as residents use their knowledge to to influence neighborhood change (Darcy, 2013;Hodkinson & Essin, 2015;Thurber, Collins, Greer, McKnight, & Thompson, 2018;Thurber & Fraser, 2016;Sinha, 2013).…”