The Bronx on the Move: Participatory Consultation With Mothers and Youth

Abstract

We introduce participatory action research as a strategy for "consultation with." We elaborate the possibilities and limits of participatory consultation as a strategy that enables sustained relations with communities of material poverty and resilience wealth. Consulting with an activist organization, and dedicated to producing a Web-based oral history, we engaged youth researchers to (a) conduct individual oral histories, archival analyses, and participant observation; (b) participate in focus groups; and (c) compile their reflections on this work. The project sought to produce documentation of the history and contemporary conditions under which poor and working class mothers, a few fathers, and youth struggle for justice and social mobility, against inequity with a strong sense of responsibility as parents, as students, and as activists in low resource schools.