Journeys in Community-Based Research ed. by Bonnie Jeffery et al. (review)

For at least the last half century, scholars have increasingly endeavored, especially among the social sciences, to apply their research in an effort to produce meaningful results. Paralleling the evolution of applied research, studied communities and peoples increasingly demanded not only that the research have some benefit but also that they have greater input in shaping the orientation and direction of the research process. Journeys in Community-Based Research is composed of 10 substantive essays, or chapters, celebrating the applied efforts of two research institutes in carrying out community-university research partnerships in an effort to assist vulnerable populations. Overall the work examines the successes and challenges in building meaningful relationships, while translating research efforts into meaningful results.

The volume is organized into three major sections, highlighting several major themes. The first section, “Ethics of Community-Based Research,” consists of three chapters addressing the ethical issues researchers faced in the development of university-community partnerships and issues of engagement. The authors struggled with identifying power imbalances, understanding and respecting cultural diversity, using culturally competent practices, and managing research participation, as well as issues of community capacity building. As each essay illustrates, ethical questions are project specific, each with unique challenges and potential solutions. However, as the essays reveal, ethics is a foundational component to the development and continuation of community-university relationships and must be sustained throughout the research process and beyond, especially in advocacy research within community-based research projects.

Section 2, “Advocacy and Community-Based Research,” offers two essays on advocate strategies or methods employed in an effort to build relations and community participation. As the authors note, for any degree of success in carrying out community-based research with an advocate orientation, the subject communities must be empowered to contribute to the shaping of research direction, and to remain active and willing participants. To achieve these two goals and overcome the emerging issues, the chapters discuss strategies employed to lessen, if not overcome, major issues of community inclusion in a politically engaged research agenda.

The final section, “Impact of Community-Based Research,” is composed of five grounded case studies that highlight the impact of community-based research. It emphasizes critical examinations of a specific topical community-based research endeavor that led to an identifiable change in policy, program, or capacity development in reducing various inequalities among the subject communities. As each chapter illuminates, community-based research projects involve a collaborative approach in which decision making is shared; in reality, different levels of participation exist along a continuum of control. Each essay offers concrete lessons on the challenges and successes of conducting research in a shifting landscape that is action-oriented and directed toward reducing inequalities. It can be achieved through recognition of the importance of values such as self-determination, protection of confidentiality, equal distribution of resources, recognition of power issues, and the promotion of cultural diversity.

In the final analysis, the work illustrates the merging of critical practices with community-based approaches that not only will contribute to positive change at the individual, community, and societal level, but also offer avenues for research design, including the building of method and theory in conducting community-based research. As the introduction and conclusion acknowledge, conducting activist research is filled with contradictions. Such research must embody and invoke the principles of social science while generating data that accurately reflect, as well as impact, the research subjects. Journeys in Community-Based Research provides a diverse topical venue that discusses openly the challenges and lessons learned surrounding advocacy research.