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.
INTRODUCTION
The struggle to achieve healthy, equitable, and sustainable communities plays out on a terrain that is both material and epistemological. Across this landscape, collaborations between residents, advocacy organizations, and academics can develop and implement variations of community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) that center local knowledge and support the self-empowerment of those most affected by environmental injustices. Literature that assesses graduate student experiences using CBPAR in the context of environmental justice (EJ) research is relatively limited.1,2 This is a missed opportunity for CBPAR and EJ scholarship as there are unique experiences and challenges facing graduate students, including issues of time, trust, and resources. 3 Addressing these gaps could lead to a deeper understanding of how they can effectively contribute to and benefit from CBPAR in EJ research.
This article explores the challenges and opportunities in designing and conducting community-engaged research (CEnR) on EJ issues through three case studies led by graduate students. All three cases highlight the unique positionality of the researchers and their process in applying a critical yet liberatory lens to their academic practice. Each of the authors contends with and develops their creative responses to structural challenges as graduate students (e.g., limited time, funding, networks, recognition/legitimacy) and, in so doing, become part of the EJ struggle. Reflecting on their positionalities as graduate students doing CBPAR, the authors discuss their struggles to be in the right relation with their host communities while also answering to the individualistic hierarchical expectations of higher education. 4 These reflective narratives address key issues in CBPAR, including the power dynamics between researchers and communities; the valuing of different kinds of knowledge; the logistics and resource needs for project success; and the challenges of sustainability. 5
In the first case, Peter Nguyen models a community-based research approach in which local organizations in the Vietnamese refugee/immigrant community in New Orleans helped him foreground concepts of resilience in the face of climate change. In the second case, Lupe Franco illustrates a dynamic participatory process to design a research project associated with climate justice. Finally, Heather Lieb recounts an action-focused project on food security and waste reduction. These cases contribute crucial elements of a CBPAR model that can inform movements for EJ.
This article draws on all three concepts to form the basis of a critical approach to EJ studies. The cases embody fundamental commitments to social equity and structural critique; from CBPAR, they draw out concerns about inclusive processes and reimagining power/knowledge hierarchies; and they respect community assets while acknowledging multigenerational trauma in immigrant and refugee populations. Together, these three concepts offer researchers and advocates a potent framework to critique, resist, and transform the structures producing environmental injustices in marginalized and overburdened communities. These projects represent powerful forms of praxis—that is, the dynamic interactions of action and reflection to build critical and productive relationships with one’s areas and partners of study. 6
The three case studies offer many similarities and differences to CBPAR research. Together, they answer several critical questions:
What challenges did graduate students encounter while doing CBPAR research? How did they respond to these challenges, and what innovations emerged? What lessons can these cases provide for other graduate students in how to help other graduate students navigate university-community partnerships to address EJ issues?
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS
Environmental justice
Environmental hazards have historically posed a disproportionate threat to marginalized groups, endangering their safety, health, and livelihoods. 7 This inequitable burden, particularly evident among BIPOC populations, has spurred the rise of EJ movements. An EJ approach applies critical analysis and action on issues of health inequities, structural racism, social justice, civil and human rights, and ecological sustainability. Pellow 8 has declared that EJ offers “a transformative vision of what an environmentally and socially just and sustainable future might look like.” EJ research has taken many forms in the decades since its conception in the late 1980s, with many studies that measure environmental injustice indicators for specific sites, documenting connections between race and environmental hazards, and raising awareness of local and transnational struggles.9,10
In What is Critical Environmental Justice (CEJ)?, Pellow presents certain limitations and tensions existing within EJ studies, including (1) the need to integrate attention to intersecting social categories (such as race, gender, sexuality, class, etc.); (2) the extent to which scholars should focus on multiscalar versus single-scalar analyses; (3) the role of the state as both a producer of environmental injustice and an opponent of EJ movements; and (4) the need to transcend the expendability of human and nonhuman populations facing socio-ecological threats from political and economic forces. 11
Our case studies engage with these four pillars in different ways by addressing intersectional identities, critiquing the state, prioritizing racial justice as a key aspect of sustainability, and adopting a multiscale approach. The place-based cases in this article provide illustrations of how CBPAR can be used to highlight environmental injustices, center the voices of those most affected and least included in decision-making, and provide insights on more just, sustainable, and liberatory futures. While grounded on local case studies, they all highlight the necessity for systemic change that is transformative and sustainable at multiple spatial and temporal scales.
Community-based participatory action research
Research focused on people of color and low-income communities has often been conducted in an extractive and exploitative way. At best, this deprives communities of the benefits of their knowledge and, at worst, can actively harm them. This has produced a sense of distrust in such communities about the motives of researchers. In response to this critical issue, researchers and community partners have turned to the transformative and decolonizing paradigm of CEnR 12 and its variant, CBPAR, to cocreate knowledge and foster an equitable research process that is nonextractive and is instead mutually respectful and beneficial. CBPAR is a powerful approach that actively engages diverse partners, including community members, representatives of local organizations, and researchers, in all phases of the research process. This inclusive collaboration ensures that every partner contributes unique expertise, enabling shared decision-making and ownership with groups historically wronged by academic researchers. The fundamental goal of CBPAR is to enrich comprehension of complex situations and issues, weaving together local insights and interventions to drive tangible social change and enhance community health and equity. 13 This work rests upon a foundation of nine guiding principles that underpin CBPAR: recognizing the community as a distinct unit of identity, capitalizing on the community’s strengths and resources, fostering an equitable partnership at every stage of the research process, ensuring research findings are disseminated to all partners, and maintaining a steadfast commitment to the long-term sustainability of the research initiative. Lastly, this method provides a framework for honoring and re-centering voices of those silenced through colonial, racist, and gendered regimes of knowledge. 14
Graduate students have engaged in innovative CBPAR projects on EJ and other issues for many years, but research that specifically focuses on their experiences has been limited. 15 Specific challenges include the disconnect between the time needed to conduct genuine CBPAR and the exigencies of graduate school schedules; the importance of building trust in contexts in which the student is a new-comer or short times in the community; and limited funding resources available to students to provide adequate compensation and project support for community partners. 16 At the same time, graduate students can bring fresh perspectives and strong social justice values, a relational focus, national or international networks, and innovative methods and concepts to bear on their projects.
METHODS
The case studies presented here integrate various community-engaged methodologies and are summarized in Table 1. Each case study illustrates different expressions of CBPAR. Case Study 1 by Peter Nguyen is a CEnR study where community voices and a community organization, Sông Community Development Corporation (Sông CDC), have guided the student’s research questions, design, and analysis. Sông CDC staff shared feedback on the central issues and concerns that community members face, the influences of their previous migration experiences, and their outlook on the community. They further connected the student with other residents, leaders, and other organization staff that helped inform the interview protocol. The methodology includes 16 semistructured interviews of community members, 33 observations of community events and meetings, and approximately 50 informal conversations with residents. This research was conducted with approval from the UC Davis Institutional Review Board, Protocol #1803046-1. Although this is not a complete CBPAR study, it is rooted in the community’s voices. This case study was selected due to its active embodiment of EJ activism, cohesive organizing, and post-Katrina intergenerational solidarity that is not as actively expressed in other Vietnamese communities in the U.S. Ultimately, this research will support the organizations in conducting their community development and EJ initiatives.
A Summary of the Key Research Components in Each Case Study
CAPECA, Community-Academic Partnerships to Advance Climate Action; CDC, Community Development Corporation; WSWA, Western Service Workers Association.
Case Study 2 by Lupe Franco uses participatory development workshops with key stakeholders to develop a CBPAR study. It is based on a model called Community-Academic Participatory Climate Action (CAPECA) that is intended to use CBPAR to develop and implement climate justice interventions in California communities. Franco played a lead role in a CAPECA project in California’s Yolo County, which was characterized by a range of urban and rural environmental and climate injustices. The CAPECA teams received training in climate justice and CBPAR, which provided valuable insights to facilitate workshops with our respective communities. Topics include Community-Driven Climate Resilience Planning and Research Design, Team Formation + Training on Budget Planning and Fundraising, and Skills and Principles with a focus on Climate Justice Framing, Power Dynamics, and Transformation of Conflict. This case study was selected to highlight the challenges that arise when the principles of CBPAR are not fully understood or applied to guide the project, thus reducing active participation from the community. By examining these difficulties, the case study aims to underscore the critical importance of community engagement and participation, ultimately providing graduate students with deeper insights into the necessity of centering community in their research.
Case Study 3 by Heather Lieb employed community-based action research. 17 This student collaborated closely with the Western Service Workers Association (WSWA) and actively engaged with their affiliated community members in developing a community-based composting program to support food justice, urban agricultural vitality, and environmental sustainability. The identification of food insecurity and waste as critical issues arose from participants at weekly Workers Benefit Council meetings. Lieb utilized remaining funds from various small grants designated for research. These grants had flexible guidelines and were intended to provide additional support for small projects. This case study was chosen because H.C.L. and her team dedicated their efforts to cocreating a composting solution that not only addressed immediate concerns but also laid the groundwork for sustained community resilience and development.
RESULTS
Case study 1
Resilience has varied interpretations and implications when applied to EJ in specific communities. Resilience is often used to describe a community’s ability to recover from disruptions and adversity. 18 Many scholars have highlighted the importance of building and sustaining capacities for social learning and collective memory within communities facing repeated, severe disturbances and dislocations. 19 This case study explores these meanings and potential consequences of resilience within the Vietnamese American community in New Orleans as they contend with disaster relief recovery and climate change.
In engaging with this New Orleans’ Vietnamese community, it is important to acknowledge my positionality as an outsider. I am a second-generation Vietnamese American raised in Chicago. My interest in EJ grew from learning about my parents’ relationship with water in Vietnam and the U.S. Seeing parallels between how my parents did not grow up with access to clean water in Vietnam and seeing other communities facing disproportionate pollution burdens inspired me to pursue EJ research. Raised around community organizations (and serving as a cofounder of a CBO with my sister), I am drawn to community-engaged scholarship as a practice that bridges community knowledge with advocacy research while centering marginalized perspectives in my work toward community-oriented problem-solving.
Vietnamese refugees in New Orleans have long endured strenuous hardships through natural and man-made disasters, including Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill, illegal toxic landfill dumping, and many other environmental injustices. Outside media and academics have often portrayed this community simply as resilient in successfully rebuilding after hurricanes. However, this label can be harmful by overlooking the community’s daily experiences, vulnerabilities, worries, and continued government negligence. This raises two questions: How does the Vietnamese community define and negotiate resilience? What are the implications of ascribing resilience to this Vietnamese community?
My application of refugee resilience contributes to the ongoing discourse that introduces a critical lens into how refugee communities such as Vietnamese refugees negotiate resilience. Contextualized within this New Orleans community, refugee resilience necessitates the acknowledgment of the community’s strength and capacity to adapt to significant disruptions while also critically recognizing the challenges, vulnerabilities, and inequities they continue to face. It also confronts government disinvestment that creates a false hope of supporting the community at the surface level through small grants that fail to address root systemic issues. This is an area of critical EJ that highlights how state power reinforces overlapping forms of inequality.
I initially connected with Sông Community Development Corporation (Sông CDC) and the Tulane University Center for Studies of Displaced Populations. They generously facilitated connections with residents, directed me to relevant organizations, and guided my questions based on emerging themes from community voices. They also directed me to the Viet Chronicle Oral History Project, which served as a key source of community narratives. These connections snowballed as each person I talked to recommended other folks to interview. Navigating these dense networks significantly shaped my understanding of refugee resilience.
However, I also experienced challenges around community engagement and developing the university-community partnership. These include fostering trusting relationships, transparency, housing deliverables that the community can utilize, funneling university funding to the community, and ensuring community benefits. One key constraint was the academic timeline and how completing a dissertation does not always align with speed and expectations of community actions. There is a push and pull in balancing the two, as there is no “end date” when considering the community’s perspective.
My findings from listening closely to community voices show that refugee resilience can be divided into three themes: (1) social memory, (2) local leadership and institutional capacity, and (3) intergenerational perspectives, care, and trauma. As defined by members of the Vietnamese community I interviewed and observed, the ability to adapt and recover from a disaster is dependent upon the social memory of navigating past experiences, communal leadership, and support through social networks and grassroots organizing. Local leadership and institutional capacities are key in empowering and galvanizing community members to advocate for themselves while preserving a solid sense of collaboration. These organizations and institutions have been pivotal in galvanizing residents in EJ activism, such as effectively fighting against an illegal toxic landfill built next to the community post-Katrina in 2006. An intergenerational lens provides a critical analysis of the challenges the community continues to face amid their successful attempts to rebuild and preserve their community from disruptions. Trauma grounds the experience of refugee resilience as even throughout the successful stories, there is still disinvestment and daily inequities that can be exacerbated from increasing climate change impacts. This illuminates CEJ where there are intersecting inequalities and axes of oppression as well as the continuation of the state as upholding embedded systemic inequities. Refugee resilience reflects all of these concerns by honoring the capacities and commitments of displaced populations while not whitewashing their struggles.
A vital lesson learned from this research process is that continually grounding myself in my positionality as a second-generation Vietnamese action researcher and relationship with community members was key in thinking about the implications beyond academia and the dissertation itself. By putting myself in their shoes and reflecting on this community as a home away from home, showed the importance of uplifting intergenerational care within this partnership. Centering this work around community voices has driven my own navigation of what research reciprocity as a graduate student means in terms of how to use my own position and resources to elevate the community’s priorities and ways of advocacy.
Case study 2
The Community-Academic Partnerships to Advance Equity-Focused Climate Action (CAPECA) training program supports community-led climate action projects throughout California. The Yolo County CAPECA team emerged from a shared concern for local climate action and included community organizers, UC Davis graduate students, postdoc scholars, state agency, and local government personnel. The diverse team with a shared commitment made for a powerful but challenging project.
Coming from the small community of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, my identity as a Chicana is shaped by the culture and values instilled by my family and community. I care deeply about the health and well-being of BIPOC communities and uplifting their voices on important decisions that they are often not included in. Coming to UC Davis’ Geography Graduate Group has given me the flexibility to research and converse with experts in EJ, climate justice, and community-engaged methodologies, which helped me bridge issues within this praxis. I became involved in CAPECA because my research focuses on climate change impacts on unhoused communities, and I approach this work through a community-engaged lens to empower community voices.
Project Initiation
In October 2022, the Yolo CAPECA team identified an initial alignment with the Yolo County Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, which aimed at achieving net-negative carbon emissions by 2030 with a focus on underrepresented communities. 20 Our original plan was to partner with Yolo County to identify local vulnerabilities, particularly within the unhoused community. Successful meetings with two Davis community organizations and collaboration with UCD undergraduate interns resulted in our team’s first set of climate vulnerability and asset maps. However, a setback arose when we discovered the county had already implemented a similar project with a larger budget. To avoid duplicating efforts, our team paused and reassessed our approach.
Although our initial approach highlighted the intersectional nature of climate change as a racialized issue affecting communities across various socioeconomic scales, we ultimately decided not to pursue this project. This experience offered a critical reflection on the complexities of addressing EJ issues through a multiscalar lens, where power dynamics and the indispensability of vulnerable populations must be carefully navigated as the situation underscored the need to resist dominant narratives that dehumanize marginalized groups in the pursuit of idealized, sustainable communities.
Challenges and Adaptation
In September 2023, the team met to assess challenges and future visions for the project. After meeting with other CAPECA teams, it was clear we were not advancing, and our efforts were not authentically incorporating community voices as we had not identified a community organization to partner with. We needed to spend time reassessing our definition of community. While our project focused on Yolo County for a while, we primarily represented the City of Davis, which meant we were not fully addressing the diverse needs of the entire county. We had to acknowledge our limited team capacity and recognize that scaling back to a more localized focus was more practical. Additionally, the intended community group that we wanted to work with presented challenges in forming partnerships, particularly because unhoused individuals often distrust academic researchers. They also live in life-threatening conditions, which may prevent them from committing to an extended CBPAR project.
Other key challenges included project implementation, the team’s time capacity, and a lack of understanding of CBPAR methods led to concerns about the time commitment that this project would take. Not fully understanding CBPAR created tension between group members who wanted to quickly develop project goals, research questions, and subsequent next steps to implementation and others who wanted more organic progress codeveloped with the community partner. That pressure was particularly felt by the other STEM-oriented graduate students on the team who were accustomed to a traditional research process—formulating a research question, developing a hypothesis, collecting and analyzing data, and drawing conclusions. Since the methodology depends on trust built between researchers and community organizations, the repeated shifts in focus and partnerships were difficult to negotiate.
After discussing these difficulties, the team considered three options: (1) continue with redefined goals, (2) scale down the project and involvement of some members while recruiting new ones, or (3) conclude the project, writing a final report to improve community-university partnerships. The team unanimously proceeded with the project, allowing members to reduce their involvement. At this time, my focus shifted, and I decided to no longer pursue this project as part of my dissertation due to the demands of preparing for my qualifying exams but instead participate as an additional project. As of this writing in September 2024, we have established an enhanced relationship within the team and with a new CAPECA coach while committing to working with a new community organization partner serving food-insecure communities in the Yolo County college town of Davis.
Lessons learned
Despite these challenges (or perhaps because of them), the project provoked new insights into the complexities of CBPAR and its integration into a graduate school context. For example, in traditional Western academic methodologies, projects often begin with standard observation, hypothesis, evidence, and results path. However, in a CBPAR project, one should engage community partners in every step. Despite CAPECA’s resources, our Yolo County team needed time to unlearn and embrace uncertainty in the project steps. CBPAR emphasizes the importance of having community partners at every step of the research process. On the ground, these communities have the lived experience to generate strategies that address environmental and climate challenges in a culturally relevant manner. I learned that building trusting relationships requires time and a level of commitment to the community, which is not something that most graduate students can guarantee, considering their degree and professional development pressures. This reality underscores the tension between academic expectations and the genuine commitment required for a truly participatory CBPAR project that is community-driven and highlights the need for academic institutions to better support graduate students pursuing these endeavors.
Case study 3
Entering my graduate program without prior experience in community engagement, I quickly recognized the importance of building meaningful relationships and acquiring community engagement skills to effectively conduct CBPAR. In 2020, I began volunteering with the WSWA, a Sacramento-based community organization committed to eradicating poverty among low-income service, in-home care, part-time, and temporary workers. WSWA aligns its mission with the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, 21 and its resilience lies in its ability to adapt to evolving community needs while minimizing reliance on short-term government funding. This context-aware approach, which tailors outreach to relevant circumstances, showcases WSWA’s nuanced understanding of community dynamics.
Recognizing the significance of volunteer work is crucial when approaching CBPAR in scientific research as it lays the foundation for meaningful relationships, cultivates essential organizational skills, builds trust, and offers insights into navigating connections within often underserved communities. These foundational steps are instrumental in the success of CBPAR and in addressing environmental injustice, allowing for collaborative relationships rooted in an understanding of individual positionalities. As an environmental chemist, my commitment to addressing environmental degradation and climate change, especially those stemming from unsustainable agricultural practices—drove my engagement with CBPAR. Despite the critical role agriculture plays in sustaining our food system, current profit-driven approaches often result in environmental harm and exacerbate food scarcity in vulnerable communities. 22 Moreover, there remains a significant gap between the physical and social sciences, often leading to a lack of intersectionality in research approaches.
Through my participatory research with WSWA, I sought to enhance my community engagement skills, communicate scientific knowledge to communities in ways that foster meaningful change, and implement CBPAR in my dissertation. This case study reflects an empowering action approach, 23 aiming to prioritize practical relevance over theoretical abstraction in the methodology and scientific proposals, thereby ensuring that scientific research contributes meaningfully to community needs beyond academic publication. In this community partnership, I used my scientific background and led efforts to transition to a sustainable, community-centric model for addressing food insecurity, understanding that food insecurity often results from an uneven distribution of nutrient-rich foods.
WSWA runs a weekly food distribution with organic produce donated from the local farmer’s market. However, these food donations often result in 5%–10% food waste. Additionally, as food stamp cuts continue post-pandemic and wages stagnate, the demand for nutritious food is rising. In response to this transition, we focused on repurposing food waste for composting to replenish nutrients in degraded soil on WSWA’s property, with the long-term goal of creating a volunteer-managed community garden.
To support this initiative, we worked with Jorge Espinosa, a sustainable landscape designer with a strong understanding of waste reduction. He discussed how compost tumblers may be the best option to repurpose food waste at WSWA, with the intention of using fertile compost to replenish nutrients in the soils of WSWA’s land. Per his suggestion, I procured three composting tumblers for WSWA, funded through remainder funds from small university grants with flexible funding guidelines and developed a maintenance strategy to be sustained by the organization and its volunteers.
The framework for this project revolved around five key components: expected results, primary and secondary purposes, tools, and maintenance mechanics. Expected results included establishing a sustainable volunteer team for the monthly composting and replenishing the soil on the property for future gardening projects. The primary purpose involved integrating new volunteers, such as environmentalists and local farmers and community gardens, into the organization. The intention was to foster discussions about the interconnectedness between humans and the environment and address the disconnection caused by factory farming. The secondary purpose was to offer classes to community members on sustainable practices for utilizing compost and reducing food waste. Tools employed in the project include a food scrap shredder, shovels, wheelbarrows, and compost tumblers. Maintenance mechanics involved organizing skills such as recruitment, training, briefings, and debriefings, and plans for retaining recurring volunteers. Each new volunteer will be trained by existing volunteers based on the details outlined in the tactic sheet.
While securing the supplies and materials for this project was straightforward, integrating and executing this project proved challenging. Since this project was not the primary focus of my dissertation, I had to dedicate personal time to its progress. Nevertheless, I ensured the project’s continuity by training volunteers to operate the compost tumblers. In addition, since these tumblers require a few weeks to break down the compost into soil, we had excess food waste. Jorge suggested that we try to minimize the amount of food waste going to compost and instead redistribute it to local farms to feed their livestock. I addressed this issue by connecting WSWA with Yisreal Family Farms, a local community farm which now collects the surplus food waste weekly to feed their livestock.
By leveraging UC Davis’s academic resources, I was able to bring tangible support to the community, illustrating how strong and sustainable relationships between community organizations, academia, and local stakeholders can create resilient systems capable of addressing injustices and environmental threats. In addition, this project taught me that when possible, taking action-based approaches to address community problems without getting pulled into rigid academic research structures can prove to be more effective. Furthermore, I was able to develop more organizational and leadership skills in this role, which will serve me well as a research scientist and project manager in future positions.
DISCUSSION
EJ scholarship often features CBPAR, but few studies focus on projects led by graduate students. 24 This represents a critical gap, as their work involves unique challenges, such as navigating logistical complexities and balancing academic and community interests. In addition, university-led EJ projects often face criticism for not being genuinely community-centered, especially in terms of knowledge production and ownership. 25 The three case studies challenge this critique by showing how graduate students leverage their positions within universities to foster authentic community-led research.
Transformative challenges and limitations
A primary challenge when conducting CBPAR in a university setting is the complex role the university plays as both a gatekeeper of knowledge and an institution with historical ties to systemic oppression. While universities are centers of learning and innovation, they are also often perceived by communities as part of an extractive system, which can create significant barriers to building trust. 26 Engaging in CBPAR as graduate students within this context is transgressive, as it seeks to disrupt the norms of the system from within.
This dual role of the university can also limit the effectiveness of CBPAR projects, particularly in fostering genuine partnerships and addressing community needs. For instance, monetary issues often arise due to the challenges in acquiring funding from sources that prioritize traditional research methodologies over participatory approaches. 27 Institutional biases within universities can manifest in a preference for theoretical frameworks over practical relevance, thereby sidelining the lived experiences and knowledge of community members. 28
Although academia is not intentionally harmful, its origins and continued operations are intertwined with broader systemic injustices, making it challenging to simultaneously benefit from and change the system. 29 Researchers must, therefore, be acutely aware of these limitations, working to bridge the gap between academic expectations and community realities while emphasizing their alignment with broader EJ struggles. We believe our case studies showcase effective efforts to overcome the bureaucratic, oppressive dynamics in universities by utilizing CBPAR tools, illustrating the power of CBPAR with CEJ.
Navigating academic landscapes
Building equitable community-university partnerships requires significant time, trust, care, funding, and negotiation to honor this expertise and recognize the graduate students’ contributions. Despite funding challenges, we were all able to leverage small university grants, valued for their flexibility, to support community partners’ contributions. In addition, interdisciplinary programs at UC Davis like the Public Impact Research Initiative within Public Scholarship and Engagement, the Environmental Health Sciences Center pilot projects, the Institute of the Environment’s Earth Scholars and Environmental and Climate Justice Scholars, the Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety, Feminist Research Institute and Imagining America allowed for the development of graduate students’ skills in EJ-related research. Several of these programs and fellowships provided funds and other support for the authors.
Faculty mentorship was also pivotal in the development and execution of these projects. These mentors accommodated their students’ timelines and understood the importance of the trust-building process in CBPAR. In addition, all three case study leaders were in “graduate groups” rather than “graduate departments.” This format allows for more interdisciplinary study and collaboration, making it easier for students to seek guidance from a diverse array of faculty with aligned expertise. In addition, the students were allowed to invite faculty from different disciplines and outside universities to serve on their dissertation committees. This was especially impactful for Lieb’s work, whose graduate group focused on the hard sciences and did not offer mentorship with experience in CBPAR.
Navigating the historical harms caused by oppressive university systems can be challenging, but UC Davis has made progress in expanding opportunities for graduate students to engage in community-based research. To enhance the public impact of CBPAR within university settings, we believe that CEnR should be normalized and supported by increased faculty training, workshops, and collaborative forums. Additionally, universities should expand what is considered “scholarly excellence” to encourage investment in research with community partnerships and benefit.
Critical reflexivity and social justice through CBPAR
Critical reflexivity and social justice are essential to these cases, emphasizing researchers’ intersectional identities and reflections on community engagement while acknowledging power dynamics. By integrating social justice-oriented theory and praxis, the research exposes power structures that harm marginalized communities, prioritizing community leadership. 30 Early community input in these cases helped to address insider/outsider tensions, bridging scholarship with advocacy and revealing where academic practices conflicted with the core principles of EJ and CBPAR. Redirecting resources from rigid university protocols to nurturing long-term relationships fostered genuine, community-led research. These graduate students’ experiences in CBPAR highlight unique challenges and the pivotal role of community organizations in shaping research and connections. These cases reveal the complexities and rewards of community partnerships, where fulfillment stems not from accolades but from meaningful relationships and shared solidarity.
CONCLUSION
The three cases profiled here illustrate the broad range of CBPAR models and highlight their challenges and possibilities of allying with marginalized communities. These cases offer three lessons in the fields of CEnR, CBPAR, and CEJ studies: (1) Graduate students’ efforts to conduct CBPAR within the limitations of their academic contexts require patience, creativity, and humility but can also offer important innovations. (2) CBPAR models that are grounded in principles of EJ and recognize both the resilience and trauma of marginalized communities can serve as powerful approaches to sustainable and equitable community development. (3) CBPAR describes a broad range of techniques that do not always occur within one project; instead, such projects should build on their unique intersectional strengths in their community-based, participatory, and action elements.
In addition, these case studies highlight different aspects of CEnR and the importance of integrating community knowledge and values into the research process. Nguyen's work with the Vietnamese community in New Orleans emphasizes how collaboration with community-based organizations can transform research questions and foster an ethics of care, prioritizing transparency, and cultural sensitivity. Franco's CBPAR project stresses the commitment required for equitable participation and the patience needed to navigate community timelines, often at odds with academic and graduate student schedules. Lastly, Lieb's involvement with the WSWA showcases how action-based, flexible approaches can sometimes address community needs more effectively than traditional research models.
Reflecting on their diverse experiences, the authors recognize that the struggles they have faced designing and implementing CBPAR through their graduate programs have provided them rich lessons in community engagement. Engaging in CBPAR research fulfills their desire to advocate for change within communities they care deeply about while challenging academic conventions. Inspired by radical EJ and social justice leaders, they strive to pursue justice at both institutional and community levels, leveraging university resources to support sustainable, community-led solutions. By bridging EJ and CBPAR through a CEJ lens, they address power imbalances and environmental inequities, advocating for justice-oriented approaches that center community voices, acknowledge intersectional identities, and prioritize grassroots organizing. In particular, the cases highlight how reflexive, adaptive, and multidimensional approaches can help students navigate the temporal, trust, and resource challenges of CBPAR. Placing student experiences in the context of action/reflection praxis can provide valuable learning opportunities in partnership with over-burdened and marginalized communities. Most importantly, all three have committed to continue weaving these approaches in their future EJ scholarship and careers.
Footnotes
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Peter Nguyen would like to thank Sông CDC staff (Khai Nguyen, Tap Bui, Mai Tran) and the Tulane University Center for Studies of Displaced Populations team, including their community cultural broker (Cam-Thanh Tran) for their generosity in welcoming me into their community, connecting me with residents, and guiding my research. Peter would also like to express deep appreciation for their commitment to equitable community development and social justice. A portion of this article was published as a part of Nguyen’s dissertation and can be found here: Nguyen, P. (2024). Refugee Resilience and Climate Justice within the Vietnamese American Community in New Orleans, Louisiana (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Davis). eScholarship. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7np4h2b7. Lupe Franco would like to thank the Yolo CAPECA team, NJ Mvondo, Daphne Condon, Nick Johnson, and Subhrajit Chakraborty, as well as the greater CAPECA team, for their overwhelming support. Heather Lieb would like to thank WSWA for their dedication to fighting against poverty conditions. Heather Lieb would also like to thank her graduate advisor Ian Faloona for his support of her interdisciplinary interests. A portion of this article was published as a part of Heather's dissertation and can be found here: Lieb, H. C. (2024). Investigating the Impacts of Meteorology and Soil NOx Emissions on Air Quality in the Salton Sea Air Basin: A Community-Engaged Approach (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Davis). eScholarship. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9w83d8tw. Together, the authors would like to thank Dr. Tracy Perkins (Arizona State University) for her guidance and for sharing her insights on graduate student experiences conducting CBPAR research and the challenges she encountered along the way. Collectively, the authors would like to thank Jonathan London for all of his guidance, continuous support of his students, and encouragement of a passion for learning, community, and care.
AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS
Each author contributed equally to the production of this article. Lupe Franco, Heather Lieb, and Peter Nguyen independently conceptualized the ideas for the case studies, collected and curated data, and obtained funding under the guidance of the PI, Jonathan London. In addition, Lupe, Heather, and Peter wrote their individual case studies and method sections. Kelsey Haydon was responsible for the development of the theory and structured abstract sections. All worked with Jonathan to create a cohesive story that connected the individual cases to each other and the literature and theory. Jonathan was responsible for the development of the introduction and conclusion, while also making edits to the rest of the article.
AUTHOR DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No interests to disclose.
FUNDING INFORMATION
Funding received to support Case Study 1 was provided through the UC Davis Henry A. Jastro Graduate Research Award, Association of American Geographers Dissertation Grant, and the Switzer Foundation Environmental Fellowship. Funding received to support Case Study 2 was provided through the UC Davis Henry A. Jastro Graduate Research Award, and the UC Davis Institute of the Environment. Funding received to support Case Study 3 was provided by the UC Davis Henry A. Jastro Graduate Research Award and the Ernest E. Hill Memorial Graduate Fellowship.