Introduction

Historical Development of Community-Based Participatory Research

The twin values of pragmatism and equity are reflected in the history of participatory research activities such that these values are sometimes considered to be distinct conceptual approaches to this method. Action research, a methodological and epistemological precursor to community-based participatory research (CBPR), is generally considered to have originated with Kurt Lewin, a social psychologist whose research beginning in the late 1930s focused on testing the impact of democratic participation in factories and community settings (Adelman 1993; Lewin 1946). These projects were notable for bringing together Lewin and his students, on the one hand, and members of the study population, on the other, to participate collaboratively in solving practical problems through the use of data. Although Lewin’s approach was subsequently put into practice by applied researchers in a number of disciplines, Laura Thompson is likely the first anthropologist to utilize this approach explicitly in her project on facilitating change in Hopi governance (Thompson 1950; Van Willigen 2002) (fig. 1).

Open in new tab

Figure 1. Laura Thompson.

Courtesy of Guampedia.

As an extension of action research, action anthropology developed largely through the so-called Fox Project, a University of Chicago field school among the Mesquakie people in rural Iowa led by Sol Tax. Largely through the influence of Tax’s students, the project was noteworthy for addressing issues of community self-determination, in part through the Mesquakie participating as co-investigators (Gearing 1988; Tax 1960).

Beginning in the 1970s, the term “action research” began to fall into disuse in favor of “participatory action research” and (somewhat later) “community-based participatory research.” In part, these shifts are semantic, emphasizing the participatory nature of the research enterprise. In addition, the change in nomenclature corresponded to a growing concern among researchers with foregrounding the structural conditions and relations of power that impact communities—including the power dynamics inherent to the research enterprise itself—and redefining the location of expert knowledge as residing in local communities. This latter perspective was strongly influenced by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s influential concept of emancipator research (Freire [1970] 2018).

Friere’s approach stems from the assumption that, through facilitation by researchers, local communities can develop a critical consciousness regarding their material conditions. They can then harness that consciousness and the requisite knowledge that they already possess to formulate collective solutions to problems caused by these conditions. Emblematic of this approach is Columbian sociologist Orlando Fals Borda’s long-term collaborative history project with the Asociación Nacional de Usuarios Campesinos (National Association of Tenant Farmers) on the country’s Caribbean coast. Fals Borda’s methodologically innovative approach to rewriting the history of the peasantry collaboratively “from below” resulted in Historia Doble de la Costa, an important four-volume work (Borda 2008; Robles Lomeli and Rappaport 2018). Some commentators have suggested that Lewin and Freire represent the two dominant historical strands of collaborative research: one developed in the Global North and focused on projects whose goal is to promote consensus and utilitarian solutions to local problems, the other developed in the Global South and concerned with collective research studies as vehicles for emancipation and for developing a critical consciousness of one’s experience (Hacker 2013; Wallerstein et al. 2018). These approaches are rarely mutually exclusive, however, as nearly all contemporary CBPR projects grapple at least implicitly with issues of power while engaging in solutions-focused projects that address community issues of interest.

Researchers, Communities, and Institutions

Academic research institutions represent important sites of power and often have an outsized impact—whether positive or negative—on the communities and regions in which they are embedded. As an important subcategory of community-based participatory research (CBPR), engaged scholarship seeks to create mutually beneficial partnerships between these institutions and local communities (Fitzgerald, Allen, and Roberts 2010).¹ Engaged scholarship utilizes the same methodological and epistemological approaches as other CBPR approaches. Engaged scholarship, however, is distinct in at least two ways. First, engaged scholarship researchers are formally affiliated with academic institutions, while CBPR investigators may be employed outside of university settings. Second, while CBPR emphasizes collaborative relationships between individual researchers (or teams of researchers) and communities, a particular focus of engaged scholarship is to promote linkages between academic institutions and communities. The primary goal of these linkages is to facilitate community-engaged research, civic engagement, community development, service learning, and improving community health and well-being (Norris-Tirrell, Lambert-Pennington, and Hyland 2010). Indicative of the growing acceptance of engaged scholarship—and by extension CBPR—in academic institutions is the fact that these approaches have entered the Carnegie classification system for universities (Giles, Sandmann, and Saltmarsh 2010) (fig. 2).

Open in new tab

Figure 2. Katherine Lambert-Pennington and a farmer from Santa Maria di Licodia talk about water and irrigation practices past and present during the “Rural-Ability” Community Environmental Planning and Development (CoPED) program in June 2018.

Courtesy of Alice Franchina.

There is a tendency in CBPR and engaged scholarship literatures to view these approaches as bridging two distinct, mutually exclusive worlds: those of the researchers and those of the communities in which they work. And, indeed, researchers’ and community members’ motivations, goals, and rewards relative to the research process may be quite different. For investigators, the research may provide a vehicle for obtaining grant funding, providing data for publications, and facilitating tenure or other forms of job promotion; for community members, in contrast, the research may be seen as a mechanism for understanding local issues of concern in-depth and for using the resulting data in grant applications to address that issue (Hacker 2013; Muhammad et al. 2014).

However, while it is true that the positions of researchers and community members are often distinct, a growing number of academically trained researchers come from the same historically marginalized underrepresented groups that characterize the communities where CBPR takes place and have therefore incorporated culturally salient methodologies into these studies (Chilisa 2012; Tuhiwai Smith 2012). Furthermore, CBPR study designs often include training community members as researchers, further blurring the distinction between the investigator and the local population. For example, CBPR approaches like photovoice, journaling, and similar methodologies in which community members are trained to document and reflect upon particular social, structural, or public health-related issues serve to democratize the research process by incorporating community members into the research team (Batallan et al. 2017; Schensul 2014; Sitter 2017).² Finally, in much of the literature focusing on the distinction between researchers and community members, the researchers are typically characterized as being employed in academic settings. However, Schensul points to the proliferation of third-sector scientists (anthropologists and other social researchers working outside of university settings) and community-based research organizations, both of which call into question the notion of the university as the sole site of scientific production and dissemination (Schensul 2010).

The question of how a community is conceptualized and demarcated both emically and etically has long been a pressing issue for anthropologists and others who carry out research with local populations. This interest stems from the fact that communities, which may seem relatively homogeneous to outsiders, often contain substantial internal diversity which can, in turn, manifest in factionalism or other forms of division. This issue is even more acute for CBPR (Blumenthal 2011), since aligning a research project with a particular community faction may unintentionally exacerbate inequality within that community (Minkler 2004; Mitchell and Baker 2005). Furthermore, the proliferation of online communities and other electronic forms of communication—and the forms of identity that emerge from them—have effectively decoupled the relationship between communities and specific geographic spaces (Balakrishnan and Claiborne 2017). Given that community spaces may no longer be synonymous with particular localities and because social beings identify with multiple communities based on affect, affiliation, or shared interest, Israel and colleagues utilize the term “communities of identity” to refer to those populations with whom CBPR approaches seek to engage and collaborate (Israel et al. 2018).

Community Advisory Boards in Community-Based Participatory Research Practice

In community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches, the community is typically represented by a coalition such as a community advisory board (CAB) (Blumenthal 2011). CABs serve a number of purposes. First, members of the CAB function as the interface between researchers and the community. In this respect, they act as the de facto community representatives for the project and are responsible for providing the critical oversight necessary to ensure that community wishes and expectations are met (Morris 2011). Second, as people with deep knowledge of the community, cultural and social resources they hold, and the problems they face, CABs serve as expert panels (LeCompte et al. 1999). Third, in their capacity as key informants or local experts, CAB members play a substantial role in working with the researcher to identify the problems that need to be addressed and in developing study questions and methodological approaches for understanding those problems (LeCompte et al. 1999). Fourth, among the most important roles of CABs is identifying potential research participants and facilitating their recruitment into the study (Hacker 2013). Relatedly, CAB members can help identify the presence and location of community members who have particular demographic or other salient characteristics of the target population, including those who are otherwise hard to reach (Flicker, Guta, and Travers 2018). Also, to the extent that CAB members have credibility in the community, their service in an advisory capacity gives the study local credibility, which increases the likelihood of participation. Last, the CAB plays an important role in the dissemination of the project findings within the community and in the development of an action plan that may result from the study conclusions (Lopez et al. 2017).

Building trust between researchers, the CAB, and the community constitutes a foundational practice for any CBPR study, particularly in cases where communities have had negative experiences with researchers or institutions where they work (Andrews, Ybarra, and Matthews 2013). However, the processes that lead to relationships of trust and mutual respect are poorly understood, in part due to a tendency in the literature to view trust in binary terms. This tendency is unfortunate, since the development and nurturance of mutually respectful and beneficial relationships between communities and researchers are arguably the cornerstone for any community-based research project. In response to this concern, Lucero and colleagues offer an evidence-based typology of trust in community–researcher partnerships (Lucero, Wright, and Reese 2018, 63) (Table 1). Rather than being static, the model reflects the fact that levels of trust do not necessarily begin with an absence of trust and that levels of trust may change over time. The model therefore serves as a tool for members of these partnerships to reflect critically upon the degree of trust present at any given moment in the project and to be proactive in seeking opportunities to foster and maintain mutual trust.

Because of the critical relationship between CABs and researchers in CBPR projects and the importance of trust in sustaining these partnerships, the format and facilitation of those meetings and other forms of internal communication are especially important (Andrews et al. 2010). However, best practices regarding communication have been only sporadically documented (see Newman et al. 2011). An important strategy entails incorporating open discussions between the researcher and the CAB regarding the structure, purpose, intention, and processes of communication. This strategy is particularly pertinent to formal meetings, which can otherwise have the unintended effect of perpetuating hierarchical relationships between researchers and community members (Newman et al. 2011). For this reason, collectively developing and approving meeting agendas to ensure that the topics for discussion address issues of concern for all members of the partnership, including formal opportunities for rapport-building, is a useful strategy. Furthermore, it is important to identify a facilitator from within the group who can ensure that attendees feel free to speak candidly and that the issues raised by partnership members are adequately addressed.

Ethics

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is based fundamentally on principles of reciprocity, equity, and collaboration, which distinguishes it from other forms of social research. It is therefore predicated not only on the ethical treatment of research participants—which is the goal of most research involving human beings—but on engendering social justice, empowerment, and egalitarianism at the community level through the research process itself. CBPR is not immune from ethical concerns, however. In part, these concerns are structural, since institutional review boards—which assess ethical issues in scientific research—are often poorly equipped to address the fluid and emergent interactions and approaches that tend to characterize CBPR. More directly, because CBPR, like ethnography, depends so strongly on rapport and relationship-building interactions and activities, scholars are beginning to focus on the everyday ethics of CBPR (Banks et al. 2013; Flicker et al. 2018). Banks and colleagues, for example, identify six broad themes pertaining to the ethical challenges of CBPR:

Each of these dimensions is important to consider because the consequences of failing to mindfully reflect upon the ethical questions that are more or less unique to CBPR during each stage of the research can ultimately have a detrimental impact on the partnership, the community, and the project itself (Minkler 2004). As Eikeland observes:

(W)ho is to be involved; how and why; who makes decisions and how; whose interpretations are to prevail and why; how do we write about and publish on people involved; who owns the ideas developed; etc. . . .The consequences of letting such questions pass unattended may be—intended or not—the spontaneous, habitual emergence of subtle power structures on a micro-level, not clearly visible in the beginning, but accumulating and “petrifying” over time into larger unwanted patterns.

(Eikeland 2006, 39)

Barriers to Successful Community-Based Participatory Research Projects

Although community-based participatory research (CBPR) provides a fertile conceptual and methodological framework for collaboratively directed community research, advocacy, and development, the approach also contains several impediments that have prevented the approach from being as widespread as it may otherwise be. Chief among these are time and money (Brydon-Miller 2008; Giles and Giles 2012; Lake and Wendland 2018). Establishing and maintaining successful collaborative relationships between researchers and community members can be time-consuming, especially initially when bonds of mutual trust may be at their most fragile. Apart from those relatively few universities that are deeply committed to the principles of engaged scholarship, academic institutions rarely reward, much less acknowledge, these time commitments (Arrieta et al. 2017; Giles and Giles 2012). Conversely, community-based organizations (CBOs) are often understaffed and their personnel strapped for time in attending to immediate community needs. It can therefore be difficult for CBO leaders and staff to invest the time to establish authentic partnerships without outside researchers. Furthermore, grant funding rarely provides resources for partnership development, nor for funding efforts to collaboratively develop research questions and methodologies; on the contrary, a tightly structured research design at the time of submission is nearly always a requirement for successful grant applications. Furthermore, research funders almost invariably recognize the lead investigator’s institution as the fiscal agent, with community organizations assigned the role of subcontractor. This fiscal arrangement not only reinforces the unequal status of CBOs relative to academic institutions (Lake and Wendland 2018), but makes the latter in a sense dependent on the university and its bureaucratic processes for reimbursement. Last, although community–researcher partnerships are the key to successful CBPR projects, they are difficult to maintain after the funding for a particular project has ended. Although some institutions offer bridge funding to researchers who are between projects, these resources are seldom available to community collaborators, making it all the more difficult for the latter to participate actively in partnership maintenance and new project development.

In addition to barriers related to time and resources, CBPR, like ethnography, has been the subject of several forms of critique. First, despite the fact that the value if this approach is increasingly recognized by funders and scholars in multiple disciplines, CBPR can be perceived as lacking objectivity because representatives of the community in which the study takes place actively collaborate in the research. However, Calderón and colleagues argue that successful CBPR projects must be at least as rigorous as more traditional approaches in order to advance the community-oriented social justice agendas that are among the key goals of these projects (Calderón et al. 2018). A second critique, again shared with those of ethnography, is that CBPR studies lack external validity in the sense that the findings may not be generalizable to other community settings (Hacker 2013). However, Wallerstein and Duran note that CBPR can facilitate the external validity of existing interventions since community members and researchers partner to adapt those interventions to local cultural, social, and political contexts (Wallerstein and Duran 2010).

Conclusion

Despite its numerous challenges, community-based participatory research (CBPR) provides a valuable theoretical, epistemological, and methodological framework for communities and researchers to document and interpret local issues of concern collectively and in-depth, and to use that information to develop community-driven initiatives for addressing these problems. Equally important, CBPR offers a transformative approach to community engagement and to researcher–community partnerships in particular by reducing the hierarchical relationships between research institutions and local communities and situating the research itself as an arena for dialogue, reflection, mutual learning, and social action. Put another way, CBPR may be considered not only a methodological and epistemological approach to understanding the issues facing community members, but a social movement to democratize knowledge production on a global scale (Schensul 2010). As a field that likewise privileges local knowledge and considers community members to be content experts, anthropology provides a fertile ground for the development and advancement of these critical approaches. Because of this shared perspective and because of the growing acceptance of this approach by funders, researchers, and community members themselves, students preparing for a career as applied anthropologists would be well-advised to seek out opportunities to incorporate CBPR into their theoretical and methodological toolkits.