Collaborating for Change

"The dismantling of the public sector over the past three decades has meant that even as universities proclaimed their commitment to civic engagement, community-based courses often ended up trying to compensate for the loss of essential services, rather than challenging the status quo. Now comes this collection, which demonstrates that when academics collaborate with grassroots activists who are committed to progressive social change, and when they embrace egalitarian research methods, genuine transformation is possible. I highly recommend it for anyone who is involved in university-community partnerships."

-- Susan B. Hyatt * co-editor of Learning Under Neoliberalism: Ethnographies of Governance in Higher Education *
"Collaborating for Change is an invigorating how-to on forging solidarity across activist and academic divides, a blueprint for turning visions of a better world into reality with a step-by-step
accounting of what works on the frontlines in the struggle for social justice. In a new twist on "thinking global, acting local," this powerful and instructive volume illustrates the magic that
happens when committed, thoughtful people bring their special knowledge and expertise to bear on a common goal." -- Alisse Waterston * author with illustrator Charlotte Hollands, of the forthcoming graphic book, Light in Dark Times: Th *
"Each part of Collaborating for Change presents participatory action research from different communities and with different goals. What connects them is a shared rejection of the notion that academic research and community organizing are separate, and in fact, they show that blurring the lines between these practices strengthens each....While the findings they present are supported by the data and, while every research project led to significant policy changes, [some] succeeded beyond this [and] most clearly captured the power of praxis in language new researchers can absorb." * AnthroSource *
"The greatest strength of this casebook is that it includes numerous rich, detailed examples that illustrate PAR processes, including their strengths and contributions as well as challenges and obstacles. Each chapter is co-authored and focuses on a PAR process funded by the SIF. For those hungry for examples, this casebook is a feast." * Contemporary Sociology *
"Collaborating for Change: A Participatory Action Research Casebook is a particularly timely publication considering the influx in momentum for social justice movements during 2020....[A] quality overview of PAR as an epistemology and method, but its true value lies in the real world examples of how collaborating for change has played out and created co- benefits for researchers, activists, organizations, and communities." * Rural Sociology *
"Pedagogy in Participatory Action Research," by Prentice Zinn * Footnotes *