Routledge Ecologies of Engaged Scholarship: Stories from Activist Academics

Story and auto-ethnography are study methods based on decolonizing and liberating research perspectives. Stories, auto-ethnographies, and other qualitative methodologies enable the researcher/educator to be both a research instrument and an object in their study. Stories allow for the examination of personal growth, its effect on practice, and their impact on community. The researcher/educator is able to witness her/his own life as they collaborate with participants. Through the use of story, auto-ethnography, and other qualitative methodologies, researchers/educators can link the history of self within their community/activist work to its present conditions as they map their collective community’s future. Ecologies of Engaged Scholarship explores the use of story and auto-ethnography as a tool to know ‘self’ and ‘other’ in relationship to capacity building, pedagogical processes, and activist scholarship. It highlights activist-scholarship to better understand the epistemology and landscape of activist research. Contributors to the book self-identify as activist-scholars or scholar-activists, and in their unique chapters they consider the values informing their work, the origins and nature of their work, and how they make meaning of their work. They also consider how family and/or community has been involved, how previous schooling experiences have affected their trajectory, and how particular relationships have worked to influence their philosophical understanding. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. About the Author Miguel A. Guajardo is a Professor in the Education and Community Leadership Program and a member of the doctoral faculty in School Improvement at Texas State University, USA. His research interests include issues of community building, community youth development, race and ethnicity, university and community partnerships, and Latino youth and families. Francisco Guajardo is Professor of Organization and School Leadership and the Executive Director of the B3 Institute at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA. His research interests include school and community leadership, Latino epistemologies, Borderlands studies, and the integration of the arts in community leadership. Leslie Ann Locke is an Assistant Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership Studies at the University of Iowa, USA, and a Director of the Research Initiative on Social Justice and Equity. Her research interests include leadership for social justice, schooling for students from marginalized groups, equity-oriented education policy, and qualitative methodologies.