Participatory Action Research - Feminist Trailblazers & Good Troublemakers Patricia Maguire

In this episode, we speak with Wardarina and Vernie Yocogan-Diano about their feminist participatory action research projects advancing women's rights and development justice through building autonomous feminist movements and organizations with the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development.

Wardarina is an activist, feminist, and feminist participatory action research enthusiast. She is originally from Indonesia and moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand 12 years ago to work with APWLD. She's currently the deputy regional coordinator of Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), which is a network of 265 plus organizations and diverse women's groups from 30 countries in Asia and Pacific.

Vernie is an indigenous women's human rights defender. She's been an activist for over 30 years in her home region, Cordillera, Philippines. She's also an activist at the national level in the Philippines and the Asia Pacific region. She's a training facilitator for APWLD, which is an integral part of her work, leading, igniting, organizing, and mobilizing women. She joined APWLD as a mentor and trainer facilitator in 2012. 

The conversation starts with exploring the background of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, its mission and membership (02:24); Vernie’s community, activist work and her journey to APWLD (05:32); APWLD's Journey into Feminist Participatory Action Research (10:26); APWLD's commitment over time to Feminist Participatory Action Research (18:22); Supporting women's groups to do Feminist Participatory Action Research (27:52); Women’s learnings in Feminist Participatory Action Research projects (30:46); Dealing with the dangers of doing FPAR and organizational solidarity (36:22); Women workers’ labor rights in an era of digitalization - a  Feminist Participatory Action Research project (44:15); Reflexivity as feminist participatory researchers (45:43); and APWLD's commitment to FPAR and building participatory interactive tools (51:23).

Learn more about our guests, their work, and references mentioned in the episode at our companion site https://www.parfemtrailblazers.net/  This episode is hosted by Patricia Maguire and produced by Vanessa Gold, Shikha Diwakar, and Kavya Harshitha Jidugu. Music is by ZakharValaha from Pixabay.

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Honor Ford-Smith about her successes and her challenges in bringing feminist values and ways of being to participatory action research with black working-class women in Jamaica as well as communities affected by violence. Dr. Ford-Smith discusses reimagining participatory action research through collaborative or collective performance theater as an approach to knowledge creation and action.

Dr. Ford-Smith retired from York University in Toronto, Canada, where she was an Associate Professor in the Community Arts Practice Program, which was under the Faculty of Environmental Studies. She's currently an Artist-in-Residence at the School of Drama in Edna Manley College, Kingston, Jamaica, where she's working on her newest project - Memory, My City, My Home. She is also the co-founder of the Sistren Theatre Collective. Dr. Ford-Smith is an activist, artist, scholar, theater worker, and poet. Her work emphasizes the intersections of race, decolonization, and globalization in the Caribbean and its diaspora. She engages in community-based, socially-engaged, collaborative performance theater.

The conversation starts with exploring our guest’s journey into community-engaged participatory research (02:26). Topics discussed include the accomplishments and the knowledge production through Sistren collective (05:18); challenges and reception of plays depicting Black women's experiences in Jamaica (12:00), feminist research and action through the Caribbean Association of Feminist Research and Action (19:50); arts-based workshops and the Letters from the Dead project (30:16), Vigil for Roxie and collaborative performance through participatory research (37:59); community-engaged performance creation and Song for the Beloved (42:58); collaborative and collective theater for social change (52:44), and new forms of art for social change, including the digital mapping project (55:43). Tune in to hear more!

Learn more about our guests, their work, and references mentioned in the episode at our companion site: https://www.parfemtrailblazers.net/. This episode is hosted by Patricia Maguire and produced by Vanessa Gold, Shikha Diwakar, and Kavya Harshitha Jidugu. Music is by Zakhar Valaha from Pixabay.

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Wendy Frisby and Dr. Colleen Reid about their feminist participatory action research projects with community partners and people from marginalized groups who are often excluded from health and community recreation programs.

Dr. Wendy Frisby is Professor Emeritus in the School of Kinesiology, Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, Canada, where she was also Chair of Women's and Gender Studies in the Faculty of Arts. She has worked with and learned from women living in poverty, immigrant women, community partners, and graduate students. Dr. Frisby and her co-researchers have been awarded 25 research grants, and while they have published in traditional academic outlets, they have disseminated findings outside of academic outlets in ways that promote knowledge transfer and policy change. She was awarded the Earl Ziegler Lecture Award,  the highest honor for research, teaching and leadership from the North American Society of Sports Management.

Dr. Colleen Reid is a faculty member in Applied Community Studies at Douglas College in British Columbia, Canada. She is also an adjunct professor in both the Rehabilitation Sciences program at The University of British Columbia (UBC) and the Faculty of Health Professions at Dalhousie University. For 25 years, Colleen has been involved in many varieties of Community-Based Participatory Research: action research, participatory action research, and feminist research. She works in promoting health equity with stigmatized and marginalized groups. Her work focuses on health inequalities such as access to leisure, recreation, and health programs. She's researched with women who are on low income, women struggling with employability, practitioners striving for workplace and health care system recognition, individuals with lived experience of mental illness, and individuals living with dementia.

The conversation starts with exploring our guests’ journeys into Participatory Action Research (5:27), diving into some of their early projects such as Women Organizing Activities for Women (10:58) and getting to know some of the 'aha's' and key takeaways from that experience about participatory research (18:34). The topics covered in this episode include challenges, barriers, support and resistance encountered in Community-Based PAR projects and the critical importance of community partners (23:22); contributions to changing the near-environment (such as the university and  partnerships with community groups) (26:39); what has sustained them in this work (56:50); concluding with words of encouragement for people starting out in community-based feminist participatory action research (59:50)

Learn more about our guests, their work, and references mentioned in the episode at our companion site https://www.parfemtrailblazers.net/  This episode is hosted by Patricia Maguire and produced by Vanessa Gold, Shikha Diwakar, and Kavya Harshitha Jidugu. Music is by ZakharValaha from Pixabay.

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Maggie O'Neill about her journey into the transformative possibilities of participatory research in working with female sex workers and migrants and re-imagining participatory action research through biographical, ethnographic methods, and performative arts. 

 

Dr. Maggie O'Neill is Professor in Sociology and Criminology at University College Cork, where she's also Director of the Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century and UCC Collective Social Futures. She is an interdisciplinary scholar with a long history of research in critical, cultural, and feminist theories, using creative, participatory, walking, art-based biological methodologies, and Praxis. Her work also extends to policy relevant interventions, especially related to sex work, migration, and sexual violence. Her latest book, Criminal Women: Gender Matters was co-authored with a group of feminists using biographical, narrative, and participatory methods. Maggie is also an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy, which is the highest academic honor in Ireland. She is an avowed feminist, and her unwavering commitment is to creating intellectual and practical spaces and processes to include women's voices, particularly marginalized women, in research and policymaking.

The conversation starts with exploring our guest’s journey into Participatory Action Research (02:48). Topics discussed include biographical and ethnographic methods, and performative arts used in Prostitute Outreach Workers Project (04:12), Participatory Action Research in partnership with forced migrants, women in migration and transnational communities (10:18), Situational Authority and Power dynamics (13:59), Impact on agency leaders, personnel on policy(16:10), Barriers in doing Partcipatory Action Research with sex workers and migrants and collaborating with various groups (21:18), Relationship building, collaboration and starting with Participatory Action Research (27:20), Ethics of care and caring (31:46), Open access and research (36:37), and  collaborative focus on feminist participatory action research and the power of theatre, in participatory research and participatory arts (41:54) Tune-in to hear more!

 

Learn more about our guests, their work, and references mentioned in the episode at our companion site: https://www.parfemtrailblazers.net/. This episode is hosted by Patricia Maguire and produced by Vanessa Gold, Shikha Diwakar, and Kavya Harshitha Jidugu. Music is by ZakharValaha from Pixabay.

 

 

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Rauni Räsänen and Dr. Mervi Kaukko about their journey into the transformative potential of education and reforming teacher education through action research in Finland.  

Dr. Rauni Räsänen is a Professor Emerita in the Faculty of Education at the University of Oulu University, Finland. In the 1960s, she started as a primary and secondary school teacher and a provisional supervisor for language teaching. Dr. Räsänen was also a Fulbright Scholar in the U.S. in the 1970s. She completed the first action research PhD in the field of . education in Finland. At Oulu University, she coordinated two groundbreaking international programs, the Master of Education International Program (which is now Intercultural Teacher Education) and the Education and Globalization Master's Program. Her research interests are ethics of education, teachers’ professional ethics, diversity in education, inclusive education, intercultural education, and international or global education. She also worked as a member of the National UNESCO Commission.

Dr. Mervi Kaukko is a Professor of Multicultural Education at Tampere University in Finland. Dr. Kaukko, in her PhD research, worked with unaccompanied asylum-seeking girls in a Finnish reception center. This participatory action research focused on the participation in PAR of unaccompanied girls, taking into consideration the intersection of their status, their gender, their age, ethnicity and so forth.  Her most recent action research projects focus on refugee and asylum-seeking children in Finland and Australia. She is also the Finnish coordinator of an International Action Research Practice Theory Network - Pedagogy, Education and Praxis. 

The conversation starts with exploring our guests’ journey into Participatory Action Research (04:11). Topics discussed include reforming teacher education through Participatory Action Research in Finland (04:43), students' participation in improving university programs (11:02), Feminist theories and perspectives in action research in Finland (14:22), challenges integrating Intersectional Feminisms (19:02), Intersectional Feminisms or Action Research as an approach to knowledge creation (22:38), Action Research and relationship building (27:33), collaboration and starting with Participatory Action Research (32:57), and Action research within teacher education (42:03). Tune-in to hear more!

Learn more about our guests, their work, and references mentioned in the episode at our companion site: https://www.parfemtrailblazers.net/. This episode is hosted by Patricia Maguire and produced by Vanessa Gold, Shikha Diwakar, and Kavya Harshitha Jidugu. Music is by ZakharValaha from Pixabay.

In this episode, we speak with our guests Dr. Carolette Norwood and Dr. Thembi Carr about putting Black Feminism into practice using community-based participatory research in a reproductive justice project with Black women in Cincinnati.  

Carolette Norwood is professor and department head of sociology and criminology at Howard University. Dr. Norwood is a Black feminist sociologist whose research explores the implications of violence (structural, spatial, and interpersonal) at the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, and space on reproductive and sexual health injustice for Black women. Dr. Norwood’s research on Black women’s economic mobility and reproductive (in)justice in Cincinnati collectively informs her first book project tentatively titled, Jim Crow Geographies: Mapping the Intersections of Poverty, Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Urbane Space, under contract with Columbia University Press.

Thembi Carr is a scholarly activist researcher whose focus is on multicultural education, specifically dismantling structural and overt methods of subjugation within education systems. In addition to continuing this work within schools, Dr. Carr has also been using her skills to examine the access (or lack thereof) that Black women have to reproductive health care within the Cincinnati, Ohio area and in the overturning of the Roe versus Wade legislation. She is also a mother to a wonderful son.

The conversation starts with exploring our guests’ journey into participatory action research (03:29). Topics discussed include participatory or community-based action research, black feminism, and reproductive justice (09:23), black women and knowledge production (12:12), the Participatory Research Reproductive Justice Project (13:53), feminist values in the project (17:54), learning from and learning with the community (24:38), notions of the researcher as blank sheet and researcher’s values (42:43), ethos of black feminism(s) and action research (48:34). Tune-in to hear more!

Learn more about our guests, their work, and references mentioned in the episode at our companion site https://www.parfemtrailblazers.net/  This episode is hosted by Patricia Maguire and produced by Vanessa Gold and Shikha Diwakar. Music is by ZakharValaha from Pixabay.