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How the pink baby turned blue.

New bilingual Cookbook is out…

The new – bilingual – AR+ Cookbook is out! It’s got wonderful accounts of Action Researching for Transformations (ART) from all over the Spanish-speaking Global South. It doesn’t offer recipes so much as rich pictures of  diverse & creative approaches to learning-for action in community transformations. It continues a series of what we call “Cookbooks” for Action Research.

Let me share a bit of how it came into being…

 Kamil Geronimo, of Pueblo Critico in Puerto Rico reached out in 2017. She had gotten a copy of the first AR+ Cookbook. This, by the way, was referred to by friend and fellow action researcher Tere Burguete Castillo as “the pink baby.” That was because of its lovely Mexican pink cover. 

Turns out that Kamil had read “the pink baby” while living through Hurricane Maria. At that time, the Puerto Rican administration didn’t respond for 10 days to the catastrophe, leaving a vacuum.  Rather than rely on experts, NGO’s & grassroots mobilized. One of these was Kamil’s NGO, which put its artistic “popular education” methods to use. So I was delighted to hear that our original “pink baby” was both a source of inspiration and practical value in a hurricane no less! 

Kamil and I stayed in touch. We discussed why the Spanish/English language barrier had come to be.  After all, a lot of the transformation orientation of Action Research is actually indebted to the Latin spirit  – think of Paolo Freire and the strong Latin, highly political, legacy that has come from that.  And yet we rarely have accessible books in English about what’s actually going on in Latin American PAR  (though the International Journal of Action Research offers a good window in its articles).

From Kamil I learned about the double whammy of US colonial operations and the power of insulating Latin American dictators. Together these had created a huge stumbling block to cross pollination between action researchers in Latin American and their counterparts in the English speaking Global North.  Kamil and I wondered what we might “accomplish together.” And I wondered if Tere might wish to step into the conversation.

Kamil was happy to write of her experience with her team. And along the way we ran into new “cooks” – some literally cooking – as in the opening chapter from Colombia. Tere did step in, sharing some of her work with her team from the Yucatan.  She also helped with final editorial work.  For many months we sent original texts and then translations back and forth. In Spanish and English. 

We also met up in person during this “blue baby” phase at the first AR+ Gathering at Chalmers in March 2019. At that Gathering 22 countries were represented by 60 participants.  It was obvious that Spanish already is a strong ingredient in AR+ (and there’s that beautiful Mexican pink color!) And thus the pink baby Cookbook turned blue (blue cover, you see). And today we have a bilingual book – whew! I will simply skip over the endless details of  creating a new book with so many authors.  But maybe invite/nudge Kamil and Tere to share their story (just not the boring parts!) We’ll also share tastes of each chapter in upcoming blogs. 

We’re in this odd time when there is a growing and strong interest  in action research.  Action research is flourishing in our new context of social-ecological transformations related to Climate Change. Yet few academic centers train action researchers. This will no doubt change. Consider the literal hurricanes that are increasing in frequency and strength and with it the demand for more “engaged” social science.  In the meantime, all donations in downloading your copy will help us continue the work of raising consciousness about good quality action research.  

I encourage readers to taste for yourselves…https://actionresearchplus.com/action-research-book/. 

 

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