There are very few options and likely extremely rare cases where community members might become trained and certified to participate in a research project, which begs the question – who’s doing the research and capturing the input and data regarding our communities? Well, NC CIVIL has recently launch the “African American The Listening Communities, Voice Equity Project”. This is a (and read it slowly) “Community-Based Participatory” – AND – “Ethnographic” Research study.
The ethnographic term underscores the fact that this research study is explicitly interested in the voices and input from racially and economically marginalized African American neighborhoods in Greenville, as these voices are often under represented, misrepresented, or totally left out of major data and reporting that guides policy and decision making. The “community-based participatory” term refers to the fact that, rather than having strangers show up in these neighborhoods to capture information that might easily be taken out of context, poorly interpreted, or fail to gain participation outright, this project empowers community members to lead conversations and capture input from within their own native communities, but ensures that the data collected is supported with professional guidance, executed with professional and ethical standards, and honored among professionals as valid data that can be used widely to include these voices in a professional capacity.
The opportunity to build this capacity in our community owes a great deal of its thanks to our partners with East Carolina University’s Education Outreach & Scholars Academy (EOSA) initiative, which partners with local community organizations to lend the academic talents of our University to its local communities for solutions. Our EOSA team includes Dr. Jennifer Hodgson, Dr. Amy McMillan, Dr. Ericka Lawrence, ECU Graduate Assistant – Joanna Hinson, and ECU EC Scholars Lindsey Leishman and Cole Dickerson. Special thanks to the C.A.R.E.E. organization for their partnership assistance and also to Vidant Health for their invaluable support for this work and for their continual partnership commitment.