Humanizing Research
Decolonizing Qualitative Inquiry With Youth and Communities
- Django Paris - Washington University, Seattle, USA
- Maisha T. Winn - University of California, Davis, USA
*Winner of the 2015 Outstanding Book Award from the American Educational Research Association’s Qualitative Research Special Interest Group (SIG).*
What does it mean to conduct research for justice with youth and communities who are marginalized by systems of inequality based on race, ethnicity, sexuality, citizenship status, gender, and other categories of difference? In this collection, editors Django Paris and Maisha Winn have selected essays written by top scholars in education on humanizing approaches to qualitative and ethnographic inquiry with youth and their communities. Vignettes, portraits, narratives, personal and collaborative explorations, photographs, and additional data excerpts bring the findings to life for a better understanding of how to use research for positive social change.
“The text is written in an engaging, conversational tone and presents powerful stories that will connect with students and others interested in empowering under-represented groups (focused on adolescents/youth) through community based research.”
“This text is a rich repository, covers wide variety of oppressed research participants and a must read for emerging and valuable sub-field of humanizing research within qualitative research paradigm.”
“I find it to be an overall excellent addition to the conversation on humanizing qualitative research and in general on the conversation on Critical Qualitative Research and its possible directions for development.”
This book has helped me to introduce the subject of colonization and how research has been used to classify and denigrate non-white peoples and non-Western cultures.
Humanizing Research is an excellent text for researchers at any level (undergraduate and graduate students, as well as emerging scholars and community researchers). I found the book to be accessible to students who may be engaging in social science and qualitative research for the first time. The reflection questions at the end of each chapter are also ideal for class discussions and individual reflection writing assignments. The text pairs well with itself digital texts (i.e., videos, social media, etc.) and additional articles that address issues of ethics, reciprocity, and responsibility.
The chapters are great individually, but not all of them applied to all students in this particular class.
Interesting focus, too specilized for the majority of students, more used as background literature for the teachers
An imortant text in understanding different approaches to undertaking qualitative research
I should recommend this text for those working in public and not-for-profit contexts
Sample Materials & Chapters
Chapter 1 Too Close to the Work/There is Nothing Right Now
Chapter 5 Activist Ethnography with Indigenous Youth
Sage College Publishing
