Ground Truths Community-Engaged Research for Environmental Justice

“If you’re looking for a primer on how to do community-engaged research in environmental justice (EJ) communities, look no further. Chad Raphael and Martha Matsuoka (and their various coauthors) offer a comprehensive account of why EJ research must be rooted in community, as well as a step-by-step guide as to how to actually do that work and a vision of how to move the field to even more authenticity in the future. Offering a striking breadth of coverage of topics, studies, and methods, this invaluable contribution to the literature will be embraced by academics and practitioners alike.”—Manuel Pastor, Jr., Distinguished Professor, Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity; Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change; Director, USC Equity Research Institute, University of Southern California

"Want to know exactly how to flip the academic script and do community-centered environmental justice research? This book is that guide, and offers a powerful journey into how the pursuit of knowledge can empower true change! Ground Truths is patient and powerful, emphasizes relationships, and is written by a wonderful team of genuine environmental justice practitioners from all walks of life and work."—Kyle Whyte, George Willis Pack Professor, School for Environment and Sustainability, and Faculty Director, Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment, University of Michigan

“Giving primacy to frontline communities most directly affected by contamination, Raphael and Matsuoka emphasize that building mutually beneficial partnerships for research yields rich and sophisticated practices and outcomes. This book will be especially useful for researchers who are embarking on a career in research and want to know how to approach working with communities to produce respectful and useful research.”—Teresa Córdova, Professor of Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago

“Dismantling the academic monopoly on what is deemed legitimate knowledge is necessary to ensure that research is used for liberation, not reproduction of oppressive social orders. Raphael and Matsuoka’s brilliant new book on community-engaged research provides a visionary yet practical guide for those who wish to use this transformative and collaborative approach for achieving environmental justice.”—Jonathan London, Professor, Human and Community Development, University of California, Davis

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

This is the first book devoted entirely to summarizing the body of community-engaged research on environmental justice, how we can conduct more of it, and how we can do it better. It shows how community-engaged research makes unique contributions to environmental justice for Black, Indigenous, people of color, and low-income communities by centering local knowledge, building truth from the ground up, producing actionable data that can influence decisions, and transforming researchers’ relationships to communities for equity and mutual benefit. The book offers a critical synthesis of relevant research in many fields, outlines the main steps in conducting community-engaged research, evaluates the major research methods used, suggests new directions, and addresses overcoming institutional barriers to scholarship in academia. The coauthors employ an original framework that shows how community-engaged research and environmental justice align, which links research on the many topics treated in the chapters—from public health, urban planning, and conservation to law and policy, community economic development, and food justice and sovereignty.