SPOTLIGHT

ESLARP, in collaboration with the Community Informatics Initiative and Department of Landscape Architeture, will be supporting a Design Workshop and Seminar on Sao Tome starting this December.  This is the outcome of a collaboration has been growing for several years now between faculty and students from the University of Illinois and governmental and non-governmental organizations in São Tomé, an island nation off the coast of West Africa.

Professors Laura Lawson, Rebecca Ginsberg, and Lynne Dearborn will be the team leaders on a unique interdisiplinary design opportunity.  Participants will travel to São Tomé during winter break and work will continue throughout the spring semester.  Find out how to apply for the Design Workshop and Seminar.

 ESLARP in Action Blog

IPRH Participatory Action Research Reading Group

New this fall is an interdisciplinary reading group exploring Participatory Action Research (PAR).  PAR is a collaborative research methodology that is often utilized to address social justice issues.  This official Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities (IPRH) reading group was formed by ESLARP graduate students who recognized a need to better understand PAR as a methodology used by academic researchers and community members. The reading group will provide a solid foundation in the theory and practice of PAR, beginning with Paulo Freire and continuing through to current action research projects and ideas. In addition, the reading group can provide a space and time for reflection from the different action researchers operating around campus.  Members of the PAR reading group will also explore and critique related approaches to community engagement, such as service-learning, community-university partnerships, community development, participatory design, and others.  Topics will emerge from the reading group’s collective interests.  

This reading group will be meeting throughout the Fall 2008 and Spring 2009 semesters once a month to discuss readings and their implications for the projects and theoretical ideas of the participants.  Most readings will be distributed in PDF format.  We welcome community members, University students, faculty, and staff to participate in this reading group. 

Contacts:

Abbilyn Harmon and Sang Lee

Dates and Location of PAR Reading Group Meetings:

Our next meeting:
Wednesday, April 8, 5:30pm
Location TBA


Readings for April Meeting (Who's Included?):

• Chatterton, Paul (2006). "'Giving Up Activism' and Change the World in Unknown Ways: Or, Learning to Walk with Others on Uncommon Ground".  Editorial Board Antipode, 259-281.
• Pierre, Jemima.  "Activist Groundings or Groundings for Activism? A Study of Racialization as a Site of Political Engagement".  Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics, and Methods of Activist Scholarship.  Ed. Charles R. Hale.

• Boshier, Roger (1999). "Freire at the Beach: remembering Paulo in the bright days of summer".  Studies in Continuing Education, 21(1), 113-125.
• Brydon-Miller, Mary.  "Chapter 1: Terrifying Truth-Interrogating Systems of Power and Privilege and Choosing to Act".  Traveling Companions-Feminism, Teaching, and Action Research.  Ed. Mary Brydon-Miller, Patricia Maguire, and Alice McIntyre.  Westport: Praeger.

Optional Reading for February Meeting:

• Freire, P. (1970). "Chapter 2-4". A pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury Press.

• Cornwall, Andrea (2008). "Unpacking 'Participation': models, meanings, and practices". Community Development Journal, 43(3),  269-283.
• McIntyre, Alice (2000). "Constructing Meaning About Violence, School, and Community: Participatory Action Research with Urban Youth".  The Urban Review, 32(2), 123-154.
• Reason, Peter (1999). "Integrating Action and Reflection Through Co-Operative Inquiry". Management Learning, 30(2), 207-226.
• Shields, Patricia M. (1999). "The Community of Inquiry: Insights for Public Administration from Jane Addams, John Dewey and Charles S. Pierce". Texas State University, Department of Political Science.

• Hall, Budd L. (2005). "In from the cold? Reflections on participatory research from 1970-2005". Convergence, 38(1), 5-24.
• Freire, P. (1970). "Chapter 1". A pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury Press.
• Greenwood, K. & Levin, J. (1998). "Chapter 2". Introduction to action research. San Francisco: Sage.

• Freire, P. (1970). A pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury Press.
• Friedmann, J. (1987). Planning in the public domain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Park, P., Brydon-Miller, M., Hall, T., & Jackson, T. (Eds.). (1993). Voices of change: Participatory research in the United States and Canada. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
• Stoecker, R. (1999). "Are academics irrelevant? Rules for scholars in participatory research". American Behavioral Scientist, 42(5), 840–854.
• Lennie, J. (1999). "Deconstructing gendered power relations in participatory planning: Towards an empowering feminist framework of participation and action". Women’s Studies International Forum, 22(1), 97–122.
• McTaggart, R. (1994). "Participatory action research: Issues in theory and practice". Educational Action Research, 2, 313–337.
• Selener, D. (1992). Participatory Action Research and Social Change. Unpublished
• doctoral dissertation. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
• Gaventa, J. (1988). "Participatory research in North America". Convergence, 21(2), 19–28.
• Greenwood, K. & Levin, J. (1998). Introduction to action research. San Francisco: Sage.
• Cherry, D. J., & Sheffer, J. (2005). "Addressing barriers to university-community collaboration: Organizing by experts or organizing the experts?". Journal of Community Practice, 12 (3-4), 219-233.
• Arnstein, S. R. (1969). "A ladder of citizen participation". Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35 (4), 216–224.