Extending the Consequentiality of “Invisible Work” in the Food Justice Movement

ABSTRACT

Questions regarding what is consequential for communities are critical for the study and design of learning. Answering these questions requires knowledge of how the social world functions to make certain ideas, practices, and identities visible and potentially valuable. In our longitudinal, participatory design research project, we work with a group of resident-activists seeking social justice for their historically marginalized community. Our aim was to develop new tools (e.g., a software application) and understandings that could make learning consequential. Without making the differential scales of influence and values of participants' work visible, possibilities for consequential learning—learning that extends across multiple positions and perspectives in practices such as community organizing—would be limited.

Acknowledgments

This article is the product of many collaborations. We are deeply grateful to the promotoras, directors, and staff at Impact; their desire to keep learning and improving forms the basis of our partnership with them. We could not have done this work without the expertise and generosity of our faculty and student partners in the ATLAS program at CU–Boulder. Our colleagues, Thomas Philip, Claire Slattery-Quintanilla, Miguel Zavala, and an anonymous reviewer of this article have provided generous feedback that made us think deeply about our partnership and its meaning. Rogers Hall, as always, offered sharp insights, careful editing, and excellent questions to push our thinking. Shirin Vossoughi and Megan Bang, thank you for proposing this special issue and allowing us to contribute to it.

Funding

We acknowledge the financial support and encouragement from our funders at the University of Colorado, Boulder (Office of Outreach and Community Engagement, Women Investing in the School of Education, and the Alliance for Teaching, Learning, and Society) who made this work possible.

Notes

1 All proper names are pseudonyms.

1. All proper names are pseudonyms.