Black Participatory Research explores research partnerships that disrupt inequality, create change, and empower racially marginalized communities. Through presenting a series of co-reflections from professional and community researchers in different locations, this book explores the conflicts and tensions that emerge when professional interests, class and socio-economic statuses, age, geography, and cultural and language differences emerge alongside racial identity as central ways of seeing and being ourselves. Through the investigations of black researchers who collaborated in participatory research projects in post-Katrina New Orleans, USA the greater Philadelphia-New Jersey-Delaware region in the northeastern USA, and Senegal, West Africa, this book offers candid reflections of how shared identity, experiences, and differences shape the nature and process of participatory research.

PART I: DARK WATERS: NAVIGATING THE RIPPLE EFFECTS OF EDUCATION REFORM ON BLACK CHILDREN IN POST-KATRINA NEW ORLEANS1. Striving Towards Collective Solutions in Race-Conscious New Orleans; Elizabeth Drame 2. Nothing for Us, Without Us (Nihil De Nobis, Sine Nobis); Deirdre Johnson-Burel 3. Crisscross Applesauce: Reflections on Intertwined Identities; Elizabeth Drame PART II: ALL OUT WAR: FIGHTING AGAINST THE WHITE APPROPRIATION OF JAILED WISDOM 4. Working with Adult Non-Completers to Address the School Dropout Problem; Decoteau Irby 5. Commitment, Love and Responsibility are Key; Gerald Bolling 6. Be Catty and Piss on your Work: A Cautionary Tale of Researching while Black; Lynnette Mawhinney PART III: ERADICATING THE WASTE: SOME PROBLEMS WITH CHALLENGING WESTERN EDUCATION DOMINANCE IN POST-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA 7. Navigating Age, Gender, and Cultural Clashes in a Youth-Led PAR Project in West Africa; Dominique Duval-Diop8. Littering, Planting and Harvesting: Imagining Going Green in the Sands of Senegal; Fernie Diop, Ndeye Mama Diop, and Soukeyna Abbott 9. Unveiling the Bias Within: The Power of a Single Narrative to Oppress the P in Participatory; Dominique Duval-Diop10. Conclusion; Elizabeth Drame and Decoteau Irby