Résumés
Abstract
Community-based action research (CBAR) is designed to facilitate community members’ identification of challenges in their lives, as well as to collaboratively develop ways to confront those challenges. It is also designed to be an inherently ethical and justice-oriented paradigm for social change and inquiry. When working with community members in areas such as the Peruvian Andes and North India, the problems community members now identify inevitably include the effects of environmental degradation and climate change on the community, as well as challenges with economic opportunities. When engaging in collaborative action to address these challenges, tensions can arise regarding community land-usage and its economic implications. Inherently, there are ethical implications when tensions arise between different facets of community identified needs and the possible effects of solutions. In this paper, we reflect on two projects that have had ethical tensions and consider ways CBAR can transform tensions into constructive ways forward.
Keywords:
- Action research,
- Climate change,
- Community Based Research,
- Community development,
- Economic development,
- Environment,
- Ethics
Parties annexes
Bibliography
- Alvarez, S., Martínez, A. G., Zubieta, R., & Ccanchi, Y. (2024). Rethinking the agricultural use of fire and its influence on the occurrence of wildfire in High Andean communities of Cusco, Peru.
- Basu, M. (2019). The great smog of Delhi. Lung India: Official organ of Indian Chest Society, 36(3), 239–240. https://doi.org/10.4103/lungindia.lungindia_363_18
- Bello, L. D. (2025, January 13). Why India’s Delhi has one of world’s worst air pollution problems. BNN Bloomberg. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/investing/commodities/2024/10/31/why-indias-delhi-has-one-of-worlds-worst-air-pollution-problems/
- Branch, N., Ferreira, F., Lane, K., Wade, A., Walsh, D., Handley, J., Herrera, A., Rodda, H., Simmonds, M., Meddens, F., & Black, S. (2023). Adaptive capacity of farming communities to climate change in the Peruvian Andes: past, present and future (preliminary findings of the ACCESS project). Revista de Glaciares y Ecosistemas de Montaña, 51-67.
- Brasof, M., & Levitan, J. (Eds.). (2022). Student voice research: Theory, methods, and innovations from the field. Teachers College Press.
- Brügger, A., Tobias, R., & Monge-Rodríguez, F. S. (2021). Public perceptions of climate change in the Peruvian Andes. Sustainability, 13(5), 2677.
- Brydon-Miller, M., & Wood, L. (2022). Rethinking ethical processes for community-based research with vulnerable populations: Lessons from practice. Community-based research with vulnerable populations: Ethical, inclusive and sustainable frameworks for knowledge generation, 31-55.
- Centre for Economic and Social Rights (2023). (rep.). When the water runs dry: Human rights, climate change & deepening water inequality in Delhi, India. Delhi, New Delhi. https://humanrightsclinic.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/IHRC-CESR-Delhi-climate-change-report.pdf
- Collins, S. E., Clifasefi, S. L., Stanton, J., The Leap Advisory Board, Straits, K. J. E., Gil-Kashiwabara, E., Rodriguez Espinosa, P., Nicasio, A. V., Andrasik, M. P., Hawes, S. M., Miller, K. A., Nelson, L. A., Orfaly, V. E., Duran, B. M., & Wallerstein, N. (2018). Community-based participatory research (CBPR): Towards equitable involvement of community in psychology research. The American psychologist, 73(7), 884–898. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000167
- Davis L. F., Ramírez-Andreotta M. D. (2021). Participatory research for environmental justice: A critical interpretive synthesis. Environmental Health Perspectives, 129(2), Article 026001.
- Diwakar, S. (2025). Understanding experiences of Dalit, first generation women university students in India [Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation]. McGill University. Montreal, QC.
- Gullion, J. S., & Tilton, A. (2020). Researching with: A decolonizing approach to community-based action research (Vol. 6). Brill.
- Harvey, B., Huang, Y. S., Araujo, J., Vincent, K., Roux, J. P., Rouhaud, E., & Visman, E. (2021). Mobilizing climate information for decision-making in Africa: Contrasting user-centered and knowledge-centered approaches. Frontiers in Climate, 2, 589282.
- Huang, Y. S. E., Harvey, B., & Vincent, K. (2024). Large-scale sustainability programming is reshaping research excellence: Insights from a meta-ethnographic study of 12 global initiatives. Environmental Science & Policy, 155, 103725.
- International Human Rights Clinic. (2024, January 22). Inaction in the face of climate change deepens water inequality in Delhi. Harvard Law School. https://humanrightsclinic.law.harvard.edu/inaction-in-the-face-of-climate-change-deepens-water-inequality-in-delhi-according-to-harvard-clinic/
- Janes, J. E. (2016). Democratic encounters? Epistemic privilege, power, and community-based participatory action research. Action Research, 14(1), 72-87.
- Johnson, K. M., & Levitan, J. (2021). Exploring the identities and experiences of rural first-generation indigenous students using photo-cued interviewing. SAGE Research Methods Cases. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781529759105
- Johnson, K. M., & Levitan, J. (2022). Rural indigenous students in Peruvian urban higher education: Interweaving ecological systems of coloniality, community, barriers, and opportunities. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 16(1), 21.42. https://doi.org/10.1080/15595692.2021.1974383
- Johnson, K. M., & Levitan, J. (2023). Oppositionally-intertwined ecologies: A single-system, multi-theory mapping of marginalized sutdents’ experiences. New Directions for Higher Education, 204, 71-82. https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20492
- Johnson, K. M., & Levitan, J. (2025). Rural indigenous students’ pathways to and through Peruvian institutos: An ecological systems analysis. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 1-20.
- Kandpal, P. C. (2024). Air pollution in Delhi: Causes and consequences. In Combating Air Pollution: Comparisons between Delhi and Mexico City (pp. 61-75). Springer Nature Switzerland.
- Kumar, A. (2023, December 5). Toxic air divides Delhi between poverty and privilege. Physorg. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-toxic-air-delhi-poverty-privilege.html
- Kwan, C., & Walsh, C. A. (2018). Ethical issues in conducting community-based participatory research: A narrative review of the literature. Qualitative report, 23(2), 369-386.
- Lepore, W., Hall, B. L., & Tandon, R. (2021). The knowledge for change consortium: A decolonising approach to international collaboration in capacity-building in community-based participatory research. Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d'études du développement, 42(3), 347-370.
- Levitan, J., Johnson, K., Velasquez, A., Perez, J., & Bello, S. (2025). Using community-based participatory action research to create culturally grounded education at scale: A study of systems change in Peru. Educational Action Research, 1-20.
- Levitan, J., & Johnson, K. M. (2020). Salir adelante: Collaboratively developing culturally grounded curriculum with marginalized communities. American Journal of Education, 126(2), 195-230.
- Levitan, J. (2018). The danger of single theory: Understanding students’ voices and social justice in the Peruvian Andes. Teachers College Record, 120(2), 1-36.
- Levitan, J., & Post, D. (2017). Indigenous student learning outcomes and education policies in Peru and Ecuador. Indigenous education policy, equity, and intercultural understanding in Latin America, 27-49.
- Levitan, J. (2019). Ethical relationship building in action research: Getting out of western norms to foster equitable collaboration. The Canadian Journal of Action Research, 20(1), 10-29.
- Levitan, J. (2015). More than access: Overcoming barriers to girls’ secondary education in the Peruvian Andes. In Educating adolescent girls around the globe (pp. 80-96). Routledge.
- Luna-Celino, V., & Kainer, K. A. (2024). Living with Fire: Agricultural Burning by Quechua Farmers in the Peruvian Andes. Human Ecology, 1-17.
- Magnus, A. M., & Rai, K. (2023). Doing rural community-based action research (CBAR): Community perceptions and methodological impacts. Qualitative Research, 24(4), 851-871. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231188884
- Minkler, M., & Wallerstein, N. (2003). Community-based participatory research. Implications for public health funding, 2003, 93.
- Pavlish, C., & Pharris, M. (2012). Community-based collaborative action research. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
- Rizwan, S. A., Nongkynrih, B., & Gupta, S. K. (2013). Air pollution in Delhi: Its magnitude and effects on health. Indian Journal of Community Medicine, 38(1), 4-8.
- Sharma, A. K., Baliyan, P., & Kumar, P. (2018). Air pollution and public health: The challenges for Delhi, India. Reviews on environmental health, 33(1), 77-86.
- Stieglitz, A. (Co-Host and Producer), Levitan, J. (Producer), & Legassic, C. (Co-Host). (2024, June 30). Culturally grounded forest conservation and action research, with Drs. Catherine Potvin and Joseph Levitan [Audio Podcast]. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culturally-grounded-forest-conservation-and-action/id1530092194?i=1000660712337
- Stringer, E. T., & Aragón, A. O. (2020). Action research. Sage publications.
- United Nations. (2022, April 20). Archana Soreng: Our voice matters. United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/voices-of-change-archana-soreng#:~:text=%E2%80%9CFor%20us%2C%20young%20people%2C,are%20most%20contributing%20to%20it%20(
