Education research and critical race praxis: fieldnotes on “making it matter” in New Orleans

Abstract

Urban South Grassroots Research Collective for Public Education (USGRC) is a New Orleans-based coalition melding research and grassroots organizing for racial-economic equity. Buras examines her involvement as a scholar activist working in solidarity with community groups to document the effects of the charter school takeover on black public schools and neighborhoods – and push back. Through narrative accounts, Buras illustrates and analyzes USGRC’s collective efforts as an instantiation of critical race praxis. Unlike mainstream approaches to scholarship, which treat people and places as data points to be leveraged for academic purposes, USGRC’s approach prioritizes the meanings and consequences of research for communities. “Making it matter,” Buras argues, requires insurgent scholarship grounded in history, counter-storytelling, place-based knowledge, democratic collaboration, long-term commitment to community, and anti-racist action. Ultimately, she situates USGRC’s work in a lineage of freedom fighting and reveals how solidarity and historical knowledge sustain scholars and community members engaged in struggle.