The WhyPAR Podcast
The whyPAR Podcast is a podcast where youth participatory action research practitioners discuss the ethical dimensions of conducting YPAR. In this podcast, we explore issues of co-leading YPAR projects, building relationships, power dynamics, and sharing our work together. We ask practitioners to consider the ethical commitments that guide their work, as they push against structures, and reach towards new futures.
In 2017, YPAR practitioners from the Youth Research Lab began a collaborative survey project to engage YPAR practitioners in sharing the challenges and opportunities that they faced while disseminating youth knowledge from various YPAR projects, across different settings, and with different audiences. Inspired by these findings, the WhyPAR podcast places YPAR practitioners in conversation with each other so that they can delve into the ethical complexities and opportunities of conducting YPAR with diverse youth communities.
Latest Conversation
Episode 14: “People who live in their neighbourhoods know it better”: On community-engaged and participatory urban planning research with Dr. Aditi Mehta
Details
This episode features Dr. Aditi Mehta, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Toronto, and podcast host Dr. Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, Professor and Director of the Youth Research Lab here at OISE. Drawing on her diverse experiences conducting PAR neighbourhoods in the USA and Canada, Dr. Mehta reflects on the politics of knowledge production and dissemination within contexts of urban community development and public health. Together, they discuss the dynamics of community collaboration and partnerships and the important distinction between participatory research and education.
Dr. Aditi Mehta is an Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Toronto and was a community-engaged learning faculty fellow at the Centre for Community Partnerships. She completed her PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and was awarded the department’s most outstanding dissertation prize for her investigation of the politics of community media in post-disaster cities. Her research and pedagogy consider environmental justice, community development, technology, and how knowledge infrastructures influence policy. She was recently awarded the Social Science and Humanities Research Council Partnership Engagement Grant for her participatory action research course in which UofT students and youth living in Toronto's Regent Park neighbourhood collaborated to research local experiences of redevelopment and the COVID-19 pandemic.
This episode was hosted and directed by Ruben Gaztambide-Fernandez, produced by Qichun Zhang, and supported by Youth Research Lab assistant Madeleine Ross.
Transcript
References and further reading
UofT and Regent Park PAR course:
Course site: FOCUS Media and Arts and UofT Participatory Action Research
U of T News: U of T and Regent Park teens team up to bust stereotypes, tell stories of a changing neighbourhood
Muslims in Canada Archives (MiCA) Community Collaborations Learning Series: Youth, Faith, & Gentrification: Multimedia Exploration into Regent Park
YPAR in Red Hook, Brooklyn:
https://aditimehta.info/portfoliocpt/participatory-action-research-with-the-red-hook-initiative/
Prison Education course:
MIT News: https://news.mit.edu/2016/prison-ideal-classroom-new-urban-studies-course-0531
Publication on Inside-Out Prison education pedagogy: https://journals-sagepub-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/doi/10.1177/0739456X17734048
Instructor Insights: Urban Sociology in Theory and Practice
Acknowledgements
The WhyPAR Podcast would not have been possible without many individuals who worked on, or contributed to various phases of this podcast such as survey design and analysis, and podcast development. Thank you to Mel Bertrand, Tara Brown, Paula Elias, Maddy Fox, Christy Guthrie, Alissa Jean, Danielle Koehler, Julia Mogus, Mia Sanders, Vongaishe Shangamire, Hewton Tavares, and Fernanda Yanchapaxi for your work. Thank you to Leila Angod, Rebecca Beaulne-Steubing, Maddy Fox, Cristina Guerrero, Adam Howard, Brett Stoudt, Eve Tuck and Mayida Zaal for your support and contributions throughout this project.
Music credits: “Sin Ton Ni Son”, by Raúl Gaztambide.