Navigating Community-Engaged Environmental Research as Graduate Student Praxis

Abstract

Background:

This article assesses opportunities and challenges in designing and conducting environmental justice (EJ)-focused community-engaged research (CEnR) by graduate students through three case studies.

Methods:

Case Study 1 analyzes climate resilience in the New Orleans Vietnamese community using semistructured interviews, observations of community events, and informal discussions. Case Study 2 utilizes participatory workshops to build a climate justice-focused project. Case Study 3 uses action research to design a local, sustainable agriculture intervention.

Results:

Case Study 1 applies the concept of refugee resilience to understand community strengths and vulnerabilities in the face of climate injustice. Case Study 2 illustrates a dynamic participatory process in designing climate justice research through a community-engaged methodology. Case Study 3 finds that community-based action research is a crucial tool for civic engagement in science projects.

Discussion:

These case studies contribute to a critical application and reflection on CEnR and community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) in the context of critical EJ (CEJ). These case studies apply a CEJ lens through a multiscalar analysis, considering public universities as institutions of the state, and demonstrating the value of disadvantaged communities as integral and indispensable to the social, environmental, and climate justice movements.

Conclusion:

The case studies offer several contributions to the fields of CEJ and CBPAR: (1) Graduate students’ efforts to conduct CBPAR within the limitations of their academic environments offer important innovations while requiring patience, creativity, and humility; (2) CEnR models grounded in CEJ and the recognition of both resilience and trauma of marginalized communities can serve as powerful approaches to transformative social change; and (3) CBPAR describes a broad range of techniques that do not always occur fully within one project; instead, such projects should build on their unique strengths in their community-based, participatory, and action-oriented elements.