Participatory Action Research

Resilient Citizenships 

 

Women standing at publication launch event with banners

One of the key methodological approaches of my ongoing research agenda is participatory action research (PAR), drawing on empirical evidence from three collaborative research projects alongside grassroots collectives comprised of mothers of victim of police killings in Brazil and Colombia. Through what I call the Resilient Citizenships Project (funded by the Bloomberg Center for Cities, the Center for Public Leadership and DRCLAS), I sought to engage in collaborative research projects alongside victims’ mothers with the aim of producing research findings to inform public policies to reduce police violence and protect the rights of victims and their families. Research projects were developed and carried out jointly with local community activists, with research objectives and questions, methodological strategies and practices, and research outputs and dissemination determined alongside the local research team. 

 

 

 

 

Voices of Pain, Struggle, and Resistance of Mothers of Victims of State Violence in Brazil

 

Report cover

The first completed experience of the Resilient Citizenships Project was a collaborative research project with mothers of victims of police killings in Brazil that sought to address a concern expressed by collectives of mothers of victims of police violence that many mothers of fatal victims subsequently developed serious physical and mental health conditions and often died from causes such as cancer, diabetes complications, and suicide. This project, “Voices of Pain, Struggle and Resistance of Mothers of Victims of State Violence in Brazil" was a collaborative research project with the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) and the Mães de Maio Independent Movement, a collective formed by mothers of victims of the “Crimes of May,” a massacre committed by the São Paulo State Military Police and extermination groups linked to the Military Police in May 2006.

With the aim of understanding the shared dynamics and divergences in experiences with state violence in different territories, the research team includes mothers of victims of state violence in four Brazilian states: Bahia, Ceará, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. This collaborative research therefore employed various participatory research strategies to identify and analyze the consequences of state violence through the narratives of mothers of victims of state violence. 

The main findings of the research were published in July 2024 in the report “Voices of Pain, Struggle and Resistance of Mothers of Victims of State Violence in Brazil" (in Portuguese). An English-language executive summary of our report can be accessed below.

We also disseminated our research findings through two Op-Eds published by the newspaper Folha de São Paulo and the news magazine Veja. We also submitted a policy recommendation brief based on our findings to the UN Permanent Forum for People of African Descent as part of my participation in the Expert Consultation on the Draft UN Declaration on the Promotion, Protection and Full Respect of the Human Rights of People of African Descent, which can be consulted here.