Just Research in Contentious Times

Book excerpt: In this intensely powerful and personal new text, Michelle Fine widens the methodological imagination for students, educators, scholars, and researchers interested in crafting research with communities. Fine shares her struggles over the course of 30 years to translate research into policy and practice that can enhance the human condition and create a more just world. Animated by the presence of W.E.B. DuBois, Gloria Anzaldúa, Maxine Greene, and Audre Lorde, the book examines a wide array of critical participatory action research (PAR) projects involving school pushouts, Muslim American youth, queer youth of color, women in prison, and children navigating under-resourced schools. Throughout, Fine assists readers as they consider sensitive decisions about epistemology, ethics, politics, and methods; critical approaches to analysis and interpretation; and participatory strategies for policy development and organizing. Just Research in Contentious Times is an invaluable guide for creating successful participatory action research projects in times of inequity and uncertainty. Book Features: Reviews the theoretical and historical foundations of critical participatory research. Addresses why, how, with whom, and for whom research is designed. Offers case studies of critical PAR projects with youth of color, Muslim American youth, indigenous and refugee activists, and LGBTQ youth of color. Integrates critical race, feminist, postcolonial, and queer studies.