Department of Anthropology Assistant Professors Lucero Radonic and Rowenn Kalman, PhD student Cara Jacob, and Co-Director of the Healthy Flint Research Coordinating Center Community Core (HFRCC) E. Yvonne Lewis recently published an article in Qualitative Research. The article is titled “It’s a sprint, not a marathon: a case for building short-term partnerships for community-based participatory research.” The article discusses the ways in which scholars can engage in community-based participatory research within the time constraints of an academic schedule.
Read the full article at: https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941211029477
Abstract: “Academic calendars and university timelines set an urgent pace for researchers, which can hinder the establishment of long-term community partnerships. Given community-based participatory research’s (CBPR) emphasis on community-led research, time constraints can inhibit academic researchers’ commitments to collaborative methodologies and participatory research. This article considers how CBPR can be adapted for shorter-term engagements while still producing mutually beneficial research. In doing so, we contribute to the existing corpus on rapid assessment methodologies, characterized for adopting methods traditionally practiced over a longer duration to shorter time frames. We review the successes and limitations of a CBPR project executed within the timespan of six months in Flint, Michigan. In the case discussed, photo-voice enabled the inclusion of diverse ways of knowing, horizontal partnerships, reciprocal learning, and an accessible dissemination format within a CBPR framework. In conclusion we assert that there is value in short-term CBPR, especially for emergent issues where there is a need for rapid, responsive methodologies. However, short-term CBPR is a sprint, rather than a marathon; although shorter in duration, it is more intensive. It requires significant methodological commitments, flexibility, and an intensified workload for those involved.”