ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the process of a participatory action research (PAR) approach implemented to understand the prevalence and impact of economic debt and to catalyze policy changes in Illinois. We document how researchers and members of a non-profit community-organizing institution collaborated on a survey to understand debt – the types, the amount and the social consequences – within the lives of economically marginalized communities of color in Chicago. We discuss how, starting with the goal of impacting state- and city-level policy, our PAR model built on the strengths of community members and researchers to develop research questions and survey instruments, formulate an implementation plan and summarize results. Researchers took the lead in training community member advocates (in English and Spanish) to conduct group surveys that were accessible to their diverse communities. But crucially, researchers also ‘stepped back’ from parts of the process, including the administration of over 300 surveys in local neighborhoods, the dissemination of survey findings and the community-led grassroots organizing for policy changes. We describe how utilizing a strengths-based PAR approach enabled researchers to assist in building research capacity within the community partner organization, inspired a sense of shared struggle among community members and supported economic policy changes in Illinois. We conclude with several recommendations, based on some of the project achievements and challenges.
