Black emancipatory action research: integrating a theory of structural racialisation into ethnographic and participatory action research methods

Abstract

The central purpose of this article is to introduce Black Emancipatory Action Research (BEAR) as a framework that will allow social scientists to explore the implications that ‘racing research and researching race’ have for methodological practices and knowledge production in the field of education and beyond (Twine and Warren 2003). Drawing on critical race theory (CRT), participatory action research (PAR), Critical Africentricity, and feminists scholarship (FS), the BEAR framework questions notions of objectivity and a universal foundation of knowledge by breaking down the barriers between the researched and the researcher and underscoring ethical principles such as self-determination, social justice, equity, healing and love. With its commitment to community capacity building, local knowledge, asset based research, community generated information and action as part of the inquiry process – BEAR represents an orientation to research that is highly consistent with Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy aimed at creating effective strategies of liberation from multiple forms of domination experienced by African Diasporic peoples.

Keywords:

• structural racism
• emancipatory action research
• indigenous research methods
• Chicago school
• participatory action research
• critical ethnography
• racism
• pigmentocracy
• researching race

Notes

1. Pigmentocracy refers to a system of advantages or disadvantages based on various phenotypes or skin pigmentations within a racialised hierarchical society (Akom, 2008b).

2. According to Mkabela: ‘to be centred is to located as an agent instead of as the “Other”’ (2005, 180).