Episode 14: “People who live in their neighbourhoods know it better”: On community-engaged and participatory urban planning research with Dr. Aditi Mehta

Apr 14

Citation:
Gaztambide-Fernandez, Rubén. ““People who live in their neighbourhoods know it better”: On community-engaged and participatory urban planning research with Dr. Aditi Mehta.” Produced by Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, Qichun Zhang, and Madeleine Ross at The Youth Research Lab. The WhyPAR Podcast. July 6, 2023. Podcast, MP3 audio, https://youthresearchlab.org/whypar
Note on attribution:
When citing the ideas and/or when quoting material from this podcast, please attribute the ideas to the speaker(s) and, whenever possible, note the timestamp or the line where the words quoted can be found. We recommend that you draw on the style conventions typically used for “secondary sources,” such as “quoted in” (Chicago Style) or “as cited in” (APA), and that you cite the source as listed above.
Host: Welcome to The WhyPAR podcast, a project of the Youth Research Lab at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
Music
Host: My name is Rubén Gaztambide-Fernandez, and I am the Director of the Youth Research Lab and a Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
In the WhyPAR podcast, youth participatory action research practitioners discuss the ethical dimensions of conducting YPAR. In this podcast, we explore issues of co-leading YPAR projects, building relationships, power dynamics, and sharing our work together. The Youth Research Lab is located at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, in Toronto or Tkaronto, on the traditional territories of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently being cared for by the Mississaugas of the Credit River.
Aditi: “And the idea is that people who live in their neighbourhoods or see their neighbourhoods change know it better than any sort of developer or planner, or someone coming in from the outside…”
Rubén: Welcome to the YPAR podcast. We are very excited today to host Dr. Aditi Mehta, who is a faculty member here at the University of Toronto. I have been following the work of Dr. Mehta now for a couple of years since she arrived at U of T, and I've been very excited about all the work that she has been doing with communities here in Toronto, and we're excited to be in conversation with her for this episode.
Dr. Mehta has been an assistant professor here at the University of Toronto in Urban Studies, in the Urban Studies program since 2018. And she's a Community Engaged Learning Faculty Fellow at the University of Toronto Center for Community Partnerships. Dr. Mehta designs courses and research projects in collaboration with community partners for the purpose of social change and through pedagogy she reflects on the process of knowledge production. She was recently awarded the SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant for her Participatory Action Research course in which undergraduate Urban Studies students at the University of Toronto and youth members of the nonprofit FOCUS Media Arts collaborated to conduct research about the Regent Park neighbourhood’s redevelopment. And Regent Park is a neighbourhood here in Toronto that has been undergoing a fairly major, probably one of the largest redevelopment projects in Toronto, if not, perhaps in Ontario and Canada. And during the pandemic Dr. Mehta, partnered with a low-income nursing home and students in the course paired with an elder resident to develop an oral history project about the lived experiences of the city. Dr. Mehta continued her PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning where she co-designed a Participatory Action Research Project with youth in Red Hook, Brooklyn, about the politics of local wifi network in their neighborhood. And she was awarded the Institute's highest public service award for co-designing and co-publishing about MIT's first course inside a prison project that I'm excited to hear about and to learn from Dr. Mehahta's experience. So welcome to the YPAR podcast. It is wonderful to have you with us.
Aditi: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, and inviting me to speak with you all.
Rubén: Yeah, it's great to have you. I've been so looking forward to learning more about your background on the work that you've been doing–these really exciting work you've been doing with Regent Park here in Toronto. That's just really really wonderful.
Before we start to talk about your current projects, can you tell us and share with our listeners a bit about what brought you to this work? And particularly, where we would love to learn more about sort of what were the ethical commitments and sort of political commitments that you brought to this work, and the sort of drive your interest in this kind of work.
Aditi: Absolutely. So the way that I got introduced to Participatory Action Research, and YPAR in particular is my previous work before I became an academic, working with cities and affordable housing developers. So in my previous life, I did a lot of work around community engagement and community organizing around redevelopment projects in various cities. Actually, my first job after undergrad was with an affordable housing developer called Telesis Corporation. They're based in Washington, DC. But the project that I was working on was in Inner City, Baltimore, just north of Penn Station. Actually, one of the neighbourhoods is where the Wire was filmed if anyone who's listening knows. So I was working in that neighbourhood, and my role or my first job was really to figure out how to incorporate resident feedback into the redevelopment plan. And it was through that work and meeting community organizers, youth groups, talking to residents about where they see their neighbourhood’s future going and what they would like being incorporated into various redevelopment and master plans that I kind of stumbled across and learned about Participatory Action Research, and it was one of the inspirations that got me back into academia. And then, as a doctoral student, master student, doctoral student, now as a faculty member, in that same vein, I continue to work with different community groups around issues of gentrification, neighbourhood change, affordable housing, and the idea is that people who live in their neighbourhoods or see their neighbourhoods change know it better than any sort of developer or planner, or someone coming in from the outside. And you asked about ethical commitments. So in terms of ethical commitments, I design projects in collaboration with different organizations. And at the beginning of that co-design process, I tried to figure out what it is that I can give back to the organization that can be useful to their work. So, you know, you know, as the different tenets of Participatory Action Research, there's always a co-design, co-analysis, co-production, co-distribution process. So I'm very committed to those, and the idea is that whatever comes out at the end is some sort of workable knowledge, and the partnerships I form are meant to be long-term. So very rarely do I just hop in somewhere and do a project and leave. You've brought up my work in Regent Park. I've been doing it for 4 years now, and we keep iterating. We keep reiterating, and we figure out, “Okay, what is it that the organization needs? Now, what is it that the community needs now?” And keep kind of changing what we're doing at that moment.
Rubén: Thank you for sharing all of those commitments and all that experience. So one thing that we think about a lot in our work is about how these ethical commitments oftentimes run against the context and the institutions within which we're working. For us, specifically, we think a lot about how doing this work within schools is a bit of a paradox–it's a bit of a contradiction, right? Because you have this institution that's very hierarchical and then you're trying to do this non-hierarchical work inside of them. And I'm really curious what that looks like in the current context of housing and urban development. Because it's a very different context than the one that we usually think about in terms of schools, or even in terms of doing participatory research in the context of nonprofits or community-based contexts. Can you tell us a little bit about what it looks like? What does it look like to do this kind of work? And what are some of the tensions that arise when interacting with another very hierarchical institution which is urban planning and urban health. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Aditi: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's so many different tensions. So if we just step out of the university for a minute and I think about some of the more participatory planning community engagement redevelopment projects I've worked on. So many issues. So first of all, oftentimes, when outside developers come in, or even if city governments are running the project, there's usually some sort of funding to hire residents. The residents that then get those jobs tend to be the residents that are most active and already out-and-about in the community, and often community organizers. But then what happens is when they're hired by these organizations that are overseeing the project, their role gets a little bit complicated. Because are they an organizer for the community? Are they representing the organization? How can they do both? And it makes sense that they would be the people in the role that the organizations hire because they know the community best, they’re organizers, they know what's going on, they have an institutional history of being there. But then as an individual, that can be really complicated. And not even just as an individual, even when cities or developers are partnering with local community development corporations or other types of community-based organizations, you see these tensions with goals and trying to create some sort of plan for moving forward. And then, if we step into a university, where, then, someone like me is going and partnering with these organizers or community-based organizations and trying to design these projects, you bring in yet another stakeholder, another complication. And you're trying to co-design with many different organizations at the same time, because that one organization or that one person that is your partner is actually wearing many different hats, and has many different goals.
Rubén: Yeah, these tensions around… I'm also curious, because I know that in your case, another group that is involved are the U of T students that come with you and who are, in essence, participating in this to gain experience, but also to gain credit, and who bring their own expectations. And I wonder what that is like and what sorts of tensions or issues arise for you when you're integrating also university students in the project.
Aditi: Yeah, absolutely. I'll tell you a little bit about the philosophy of the course design, and then I can answer some of those questions. So we're talking about Regent Park–so Regent Park, historically, is Canada's first all-social housing neighbourhood, and by the 90s, the infrastructure, and the properties in that neighborhood were really not doing well, and the city was having a hard time managing them. So borrowing from models in the United States, the idea was, let's redevelop this neighborhood into a mixed-income neighborhood. So when I moved here in 2018, in my field, this neighbourhood, and this redevelopment project was very, very trendy. Everybody who works in urban health and redevelopment was talking about Regent Park, coming up with indicators to measure effectiveness of the project. So many different engagement projects to get residents involved. And a lot of times when I was reading about Regent Park, or talking to other scholars about it, it was compared to the American context. So then I decided, because it's my field, and I wanted to get up to speed on Canada, I decided to go visit and learn about it more by walking around and just observing for myself. And one of the things I noticed right away that no one spoke about, none of the academic articles talked about, is how heavily immigrant the neighbourhood was, and how it was a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood. And I thought, this is really interesting, it's being compared to the American context. But residents in public housing neighbourhoods in America are a very, very different demographic. And before I moved to Canada I was already working with youth media organizations. So I started doing some research to see if any such organization existed in Regent Park, and I learned about FOCUS Media Arts and Adonis’s organization. And I thought, you know, this would be a really great organization to collaborate with because they are a hyper-local news media organization. They're the ones generating local knowledge about the neighbourhood. I wanted to learn more about the neighbourhood from the resident perspective, and I just felt that all of the coursework or academic readings that students are exposed to about Regent Park kind of missed this immigrant, Muslim, and youth perspective about the redevelopment. So I contacted Adonis and asked him, “Should we do some sort of collaboration, or course together? U of T students would learn about the redevelopment from the perspective of youth and immigrants and really get a different reality than what they're reading about in academic articles and in most Urban Studies classes, especially at U of T, learn about Regent Park. And any of your young constituents or members would then have access to a university course, and also be able to develop their skills and repertoire. What do you think?” And Adonis was on board and thought it was a great idea, and they happened to have a program already called the Diva Girls. And the Diva Girls was a program specifically for young Muslim women that were growing up in the area between the ages of 12 and 17. And this demographic is especially interesting because these young women have been living in a rapidly changing neighbourhood their whole lives. So every single year their neighborhood looks different. Something's going on. They've completely lived through redevelopment. And that's their existence. So the philosophy behind the course was really to bring a new, fresh, hidden perspective, in truth, about the redevelopment project, because very little academic scholarship or media representation was talking about the immigrant, Muslim or youth perspective behind redevelopment.
Rubén: Another really interesting sort of dimension of your work that comes up as you're describing it is the multi-directionality of how knowledge moves. Right? So not only are you sort of, in a sense, interrupting how knowledge moves in the academy, right? In terms of whose knowledge counts for thinking about urban development, by paying attention to the knowledge that the young–in this case, it’s the young women–are creating about their own experience, and how that knowledge moves, right? And then how U of T students or university students are then acquiring that knowledge, and presumably how they're mobilizing that knowledge. So this really interesting and multi-directionality of how knowledge moves when we're doing participatory research that I think is really fascinating and so interesting. And I'm curious if you can tell us maybe at least just a little bit about previous projects. I'm really curious about the project that you did, working with prisons and perhaps maybe you can contrast a bit how these projects were different from each other, and how particularly this phenomenon of how knowledge moves. What's different?
Aditi: So many of the projects that you spoke about from my bio are kind of along a spectrum of participatory education to participatory research. So for example, the prison project, that was more of an educational intervention. So I wouldn't say that we conducted participatory research. The professor that I co-taught the class with and I published an article about the pedagogy of the class. But we weren't necessarily conducting research with participants of the class. It was a little bit different than some of the other projects. But the process of that class, and the way we learned and the way we produce knowledge is very, very similar to all of these various initiatives where you're bringing so many different types of people with their own situated knowledges, and lived experiences together to share and collaborate and come to new understandings about our urban world.
Rubén: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That is such a great insight. And I really like the distinction that you make, which I think oftentimes gets missed, particularly by newcomers to participatory research, between these tensions on the difference between participatory education versus participatory research. And I'm so glad that you brought that up. And this sort of leads us to another area of interest for us, which is you talk about the way in which the knowledge created is shared amongst the participants, and how that influences and shapes their understanding. One thing that often times comes up, and I know that you've struggled with this as well: Is it the question of, then, how does that knowledge get shared with another audience, right? The audience of academics or the audience of conference attendees who don't necessarily understand the context. And then what do you do right? With the layers of interpretation, and the risk of appropriation, and the misinterpretation? And I'd like to know a little bit about, sort of, how do you make some of those decisions about when and how to share the knowledge that arises from these projects with an outside audience?
Aditi: Yeah, absolutely. So the first quick answer is that the best way to share knowledge and distribute is to have many different types of products for the various audiences and stakeholders involved. And for me. That's always been a collaborative process with my partners. So personally, given my career and where I am, I I hope to and try to publish about these experiences. Obviously, that's not very important to my partners, and it feels extractive for me to just be doing that. So then we think about: “Okay, what was the goal of this particular project? What's the message we're trying to get out? And who are we trying to get it to?” and design specific interventions. With the Regent Park course and collaboration, often it's an exhibition. And that way we can invite who we want to be there. So the very first iteration of the course, we actually invited the developer, and the president of Daniel's Corporation came to the exhibition, and he saw some of these critical pieces. One team, they did research about the design of the redevelopment, and they noted that the market rate housing and the subsidized housing had different colored doors. And they talked about: “Why do we have different colour doors? Why are we differentiating? Who lives where?” Another team created a Youtube mockumentary. And they discussed how the aquatic center, which was built by the developer as a community benefit, didn't really serve the needs of the people there, or at first it didn't serve the needs, the very Muslim neighbourhood. And Muslim women were like, “Well, I'm not going to go swimming in this public pool by myself.” And so they had to rearrange programming, or the fact that a lot of outsiders were coming into the neighbourhood to use it. And there was no real thought put in at first about how that aquatic center would function to serve needs. And so the developer came, and he saw all of this, and students were really excited about that. And that was the whole idea, to sort of get these messages out to people in power. And when the course ended, many of my students said, “Well, now what? What? So we did that? So what happens now? Is he gonna change anything?” He didn't say anything about it. He didn't answer so… And so then we have to sort of discuss like, “Well changes are incremental. And how do we take the work that you all did, and move it from year to year to year, and sort of keep pushing the message and getting it into the right hands?” And, in the class, I try to build in case studies about sort of city change, and how it happens, and how it takes a long time. So people don't feel defeated after a semester that they did all of this critical work and put it out through the exhibition or the website. But so that's one thing that we always do. We have this exhibition. We have a website where all of the work lives. Most of the students in the classes over the years are pretty active on social media, so they share their work, and they connect with each other in those realms, and it gets out that way. And then, of course, this particular collaboration, because it's with a community media organization, they already have the various outlets to put the projects out there, and so they do a lot of that work as well. But, this particular course again, because the collaboration is with the media organization, a lot of the products are about stories and messages and critical perspectives. It's not like an applied, deliverable, a redevelopment plan, or a policy proposal, or something that you can tangibly see implemented. And I have worked on projects like those, and I feel like sometimes, at the end, those feel a little bit more clear in terms of your impact, whereas this is more about alternative narratives and kind of understanding how alternative narratives can push change, and how change happens slowly, especially in cities and on redevelopment projects incrementally over time.
But another PAR project I worked on, which you mentioned in the bio, was with youth in Red Hook, Brooklyn. And that one was a much more applied, tangible outcome. So the story about Red Hook, Brooklyn is that another youth organization, they were building a wifi mesh network so young people in the neighbourhood could have an internet-based radio station to share some of their music creations. A lot of young people in Red Hook produce rap and hip hop, so that was the purpose of the network. And they started building this network shortly before Superstorm Sandy hit the neighbourhood, and then, when Superstorm Sandy hit the neighbourhood, it just so happened that this network was the only functioning communication infrastructure in the neighbourhood. And so, for months, people who live there would walk to the routers where the network had been installed to access wifi. And so the network got a lot of attention from the New York City government, from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, from funders. And all of a sudden the nonprofit accumulated so much money from all of these, you know, different players to expand and build this network, which now has been called a “resilient technology”. So what they did, is they created a formalized youth program called the Red Hook Digital Stewards in which young people living in Red Hook, many who were part of the initial creation of the network, would actually build and install this network and manage it and figure out what functions it could serve in the neighbourhood. So I learned about the network through a New York Times article, and my dissertation was about disaster, communication, and technologies. And I contacted the nonprofit, and I went to learn about their work, and I worked there for a summer, and the Participatory Action Research project that I design in collaboration with the nonprofit and the youth, was to really understand how the network was being used by residents throughout the neighbourhood, and how it could be improved. And so this is very tangible, very clear… it served the organization's goals to make this network stronger, and I should say that I was doing this work in 2016-17. The storm hit in 2012. So this is four or five years later. So the network had existed for a while, and many iterations of digital stewards, which was like a 9-month to one year program, had gone through. So for that PAR project, me, the nonprofit staff, as well as various digital stewards, sat down and actually created a survey to distribute throughout the neighbourhood to understand how the network functioned. And then we had a plan. All of us went out at different times, different events, different places in the neighbourhood, administered the survey. And then once we collected all the data, we co-analyzed it together to make sense of the information. And one of the most interesting findings from that PAR survey, that YPAR survey, was that the funders who fund the network, for them, the main goal of this network is, they saw it as a workforce development skill and tool. The youth that were participating in the program to build it should then be able to get jobs at local tech companies or have a credential that sort of helps them get a job. And when we were serving youth that use the network, and the youth themselves that were working with me and that helped to build it and maintain it. The main thing that they use the network for, it wasn't for education or work, it was for recreation. So they were using the network to go on Youtube, or to go on Facebook. But what funders didn't realize is that that, in itself, was a survival mechanism. So they were going on Facebook to upload videos of where the police were hanging out that day so people would avoid that corner, or they were going on Youtube to upload videos they created about their lived experience in Red Hook. And so it was really interesting finding, so how do you explain to the people that are allowing this project to thrive, that their goals for the project are a little bit misunderstood, and that actually, recreation is a very important part of youth life and survival in neighbourhoods like that. So we created a report based on the findings that the nonprofit could then use to continue fundraising and get different types of funders to fund the network. So that PAR project I feel like, has a much more tangible end and goal, whereas the PAR project in Regent Park, it's very, very long-lived, and, like I said, it's more about stories and putting different stories out there year after year, and addressing specific needs in the moment, year after year.
Rubén: Wow! Thank you for sharing that. I love to hear these stories of the unexpected ways in which some of these projects end up evolving, and the kind of knowledge they produce, and what they shed light on. It's always to me, also one of the more powerful experiences of doing the work in schools. Also I love this story you shared, which sounds so familiar to me, of ending a project, and then the participants say: “Okay. So now what? What are we going to do now? We're going to do about this?” You know. That was very… I kind of resonated with some of that experience. And then and then using those moments as this sort of pivots to kind of rethink what can happen, right? And I wonder, just as kind of an extension of that, if you can also talk a little bit about your decision-making process when sharing the knowledge with academic audiences when writing articles or going to conferences. Because I know that's something that is always a bit of a tension. And maybe if you can share a little bit of that before we talk about your future projects.
Aditi: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I always am very open with who I am working with about my goals. And I always ask for permission, and I always share what I'm writing or presenting. And I even have talked to individuals that I work within the community about being co-authors with me. Obviously they wouldn't be writing the academic article, but it was their knowledge, their connections, their ideas that helped produce outcomes of the project. So really it's just being open and creating these understandings. I haven't gone to the point of having, like an official memorandum of understanding, or something like that. To me, that feels almost against the relationship that you worked so hard to build. It’s very transactional. So, to me, it's like building that deep relationship, and then being very open and honest about, “Hey, this is what I'm doing, there's this conference. I'm gonna talk about this. Can I share the presentation with you? Are you comfortable with this? If I write this article, do you want to co-author with me? Do you care if I share this?” And then again, with YPAR projects, I feel like there's always two partners. there's the youth that I'm working with, and then there's sort of the nonprofit staff. And it's a different process with both sides. In my experience, I feel like… again, I'm very open with the youth. I work with them as well and try to involve them in the same way. But, it's not a priority or of interest to them, which makes perfect sense. But I'm very open about it. And, in fact, when I was working in Red Hook, I did some fundraising at MIT, and I actually was able to bring three of the Red Hook youth to MIT to present our study. So I try really hard to make sure that any limelight or… what am I trying to say… and limelight or any sort of credit of the work is given to the partner. So three of the Red Hook youth, who had never left New York before, they came to Boston, came to MIT, they spoke in two classes and actually had their own event around the project. And that, I designed in collaboration and I ask them, “Would you be interested in doing this? Let's work on it together. Do you want to come?” And these three did, so we did that. But, yeah, I avoid any sort of very transactional documents or agreements, because I rely more on the relationships that I work to build. And then, of course, I share everything that I'm putting out there to make sure people are comfortable with the narrative or the message.
Rubén: Yeah, I mean, I think oftentimes the tension comes out of the fact that universities have a very transactional view of research. And a very unidirectional and almost flat understanding, even in terms of ethics protocols and even in terms of consent, right? They have this very transactional, ”Here's what I'm doing. Please sign this form…” And that can oftentimes interrupt the very relationships, just like you said, because they're not transactional relationships. They're not flattened, these kinds of bidirectional relationships. They're multi-layered and complex. And so I think that you're right. And even funders sometimes, too. They have these requirements around MOUs and contracts that just really get in the way of their relationships in interesting ways.
Can you share a little bit with us about your future projects? What are you imagining? Where is the project in Regent Park going? Do you have new projects unfolding? We're just curious to know where your work is going?
Aditi: Absolutely. So the work in Regent Park is a long-standing collaboration I hope for many, many years to come. And the idea is that every… I teach the course once a year. So once a year, one semester. And then, whatever happens in that course is part of sort of the knowledge bank for the next year, and everybody keeps building off of each other's work. So a couple of things happened during the pandemic. We missed one year of the course because of the pandemic. And then the Diva Girls program actually got cancelled because of the pandemic. So this year I'm teaching the course, but we tried it a little bit differently, and we're doing it with adult residents rather than youth, just to see how it goes. And it definitely has a completely different texture, feel, learning focus… And I really enjoyed it. But I really miss working with youth. And I think that the course has some room for graduate students. So now the next iteration of the course, and this may be overly ambitious, I'm opening it to graduate students. It'll be upper-year undergrads and graduate students. And I want it to be a mix of adults and youth. So I'm bringing even more different types of people together to do this learning. The first two years before the pandemic, when I taught the course with just youth, many of the youth repeated. So having that repetition was really helpful, and it also allowed the young people to take ownership of the space in the class. I really liked that, and I'm hoping that will happen again with some of the adults in the class around Regent Park. And so I also like to bring students that took the course before to be course assistants, or TAs, or research assistants. Having their repetition over the years, really creates like this long-standing project that keeps building on itself. In terms of the actual research and ideas that are coming from the collaboration. So, the first iteration of the course, as I told you when I went to Regent Park, I was really struck by the Muslim immigrant population, so I wanted the class to focus on that, but the class did not want to focus on that. The class really wanted to focus on the rapid change, the redevelopment of the built environment. So the first iteration of the course really focused on memorialization of important places in the neighbourhood that were being constantly destroyed and taken for granted, because developers weren't necessarily talking to youth enough. Then the second iteration of the course focused more on the Muslim youth experience. So what does it mean to be Muslim in Regent Park? And what does it mean to be Muslim in Toronto? And how should faith be incorporated into planning processes? Because planning tends to be a very secular field. But your religion and your faith definitely affects the way you navigate the built environment. And then this third iteration of the course is focusing more on the history of the neighbourhood. And that idea came from the fact that we just went through a pandemic. And this is an area that has had a long history of disease, as many public housing, lower income areas and cities do. But again, interestingly enough, people, while we focus on the history of the neighbourhood, people didn't quite take to the history of disease and public health as much as they took to the history of immigration and the cultural changes throughout the neighbourhood. So all of that to say, there's a lot to write and put out there that's come from these various iterations of the class. And now the next iteration, next year I'll have to talk more to Adonis about what he sees makes sense. I think that really focusing again on the multiculturalism in Regent Park, and the layers of immigration has stayed strong throughout the four years. And so, to me, that makes sense to keep going with that. But every year we change it a bit, based on what's going on. Currently, in current events: What makes sense for the organization? Who the participants are?
Rubén: Yeah. Great. It's so interesting to hear Adonis's name, because he's such a figure, not just in Regent Park, but even here in University of Toronto on Media and Education. But the last question: you talked about integrating graduate students and the new iterations. And a large portion of our audience for the podcast are graduate students, students who are thinking about doing participatory research and interested in that, and the podcast oftentimes gets taken up by courses to sort of where people are learning. And I'm wondering if, just to sort of close, what kind of advice would you give to someone, whether it be a graduate student, or a faculty member, or even a community member who's thinking about doing participatory research or participatory education. What would be sort of some initial advice that you would give, and words of wisdom from your experience.
Aditi: Yeah, that's a really great question. I think, being in a university or being a graduate student, you're very socialized to always have a plan. So we have syllabi. We have curriculum. We have a research proposal. But if you're going to embark on Participatory Action Research, or Participatory Education, you have to not be too attached to your plan. And you have to… it's always good to have a plan. So you have a roadmap. But be open to going off the roadmap at any point. And be open to improvising and improvisation at any point. Because I think that's really what makes these projects successful. And then also constantly be questioning your own assumptions about how the world works and about social realities. I think for me, these collaborations always teach me something new, or make me realize that I wasn't seeing something in its full picture. And I think it's good, after you have a really intense collaborative meeting, or if you've been working on the project for a few weeks, to kind of step back and think about: How has my thinking changed from this? So to do a reflection on your own. But even, in a lot of these projects, people build in reflection as a group, but I think, even before you get to the group to do that process, think about it for yourself, and think about how it's changed you, and how you're thinking. And also be prepared to have things not work out. Participatory projects are really difficult. Things fall through the crack all the time. People who are involved have so many different priorities and life circumstances. So you might have to try over and over again until something feels like, “Oh, yeah, this really, really gelled and made sense.”
Rubén: Which is often why I try to discourage doctoral students from embarking. Because, like you said, that socialization is, and the expectations are that you're going to have a plan that's going to unfold, and you're going to finish. And you know, like you said, this kind of work is so unpredictable, and you have to be so flexible that sometimes there's that clashing of expectations, of programmatic expectations, and their reality of doing the work. So thank you. Thank you for doing that. And thank you so much for sharing all of this experience and all of these insights. I think our listeners are gonna really enjoy and learn a lot from, just as I have, from listening to that, and sharing all of that. Thank you for joining us in the podcast and participating in this, and I'm really looking forward to continuing to learn from you and learn from your projects.
Host: Thank you for joining us for our conversation with Dr. Aditi Mehta from the University of Toronto. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I enjoyed having it with her and getting to know her work. I was fascinated by the similarities and differences in how working with young people in different contexts shapes their work, whether it is in the context of housing, in the context of schools, in the context of other nonprofit sectors. I thought Dr. Mehta had some really wonderful ways of helping us think about the power dynamics and how these power dynamics shift as our work changes context, different settings, different institutional constraints. I look forward to listening more and following the work of Dr. Mehta, and I hope that you have learned something from our conversation. And we look forward to hearing from you, and getting your feedback and your comments. And please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you would like to participate in the WhyPAR podcast, or if you have ideas about guests or projects that you would like to see featured in our podcast. Thanks again for joining us!

Details

This episode features Dr. Aditi Mehta, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Toronto, and podcast host Dr. Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, Professor and Director of the Youth Research Lab here at OISE. Drawing on her diverse experiences conducting PAR neighbourhoods in the USA and Canada, Dr. Mehta reflects on the politics of knowledge production and dissemination within contexts of urban community development and public health. Together, they discuss the dynamics of community collaboration and partnerships and the important distinction between participatory research and education.

Dr. Aditi Mehta is an Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Toronto and was a community-engaged learning faculty fellow at the Centre for Community Partnerships. She completed her PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and was awarded the department’s most outstanding dissertation prize for her investigation of the politics of community media in post-disaster cities. Her research and pedagogy consider environmental justice, community development, technology, and how knowledge infrastructures influence policy. She was recently awarded the Social Science and Humanities Research Council Partnership Engagement Grant for her participatory action research course in which UofT students and youth living in Toronto's Regent Park neighbourhood collaborated to research local experiences of redevelopment and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This episode was hosted and directed by Ruben Gaztambide-Fernandez, produced by Qichun Zhang, and supported by Youth Research Lab assistant Madeleine Ross.