ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the inner practice—the conscious awareness of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions—of the community engagement practitioner as change agent. It draws on a four-year change process in sustainable development using participatory action research (PAR) in two ecologically and socially vulnerable informal settlements on the outskirts of metropolitan Mexico City. This project gave me the opportunity to introduce others to the role of change agent and test my own practice. It showed how sustainability professionals and educators, when shorn of their customary titles, positions, and roles, could face their vulnerability and build trusting, horizontal relationships of collaboration and creativity with community residents and fellow teammates. The rocky road to transformation also left me with some valuable self-reflection about my own blind spots, the implications for practice as a facilitator of action research, and the meaning of awareness-based emancipatory practice.
