ABSTRACT
A key theme that unites this volume is that communities create their respective realities through the narratives they tell about themselves. Consistent with community-based work (CBW), these stories are vital for practitioners to understand properly how to study or remedy a local problem. These narratives, simply put, frame the issues that a community believes are important. What this finding means is that community-based researchers or clinicians, for example, must be good readers to be effective; they must learn how to read local realities. In this sense, CBW represents a philosophical shift that elevates in importance the need to read local worlds to enter these domains and be attuned to pressing problems and other relevant issues. In this way, local knowledge is the focus of attention.
