Demystifying How Academic-Community Partnerships Use Reflexivity and Praxis to Promote Participatory Research Principles of Equity and Justice

Sustaining productive academic-community research partnerships requires a deep commitment to ongoing reflexivity and problem-solving praxis to address conflicts that inevitably arise due to inherent power imbalances within the partnership and injustices embedded in the research topic. However, few guidelines exist for how intentional reflexivity among research partners informs praxis for community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships. The Greater Lawndale Healthy Work (GLHW) project is a CBPR study focused on work and occupation as social determinants of health. The GLHW aims to build power, equity, and community capacity to develop community-led approaches to promote healthy work at the neighborhood level. The GLHW is led by a Council of community stakeholders who determine the vision and guiding principles and oversee the implementation of evidence-based interventions. The GLWH Council co-chairs and academic partner co-leads use critical framing and structured, collaborative reflexivity sessions to unpack contradictions and conflicts that emerge as part of the research process to assure attention to equity and justice in our research partnership and processes. In addition to local commitments to equity within the academic partnership, systems change at the academic, institutional, and government (funding) levels are needed to dismantle long-held power advantages maintained by internal processes of the university, to allow for more equity and reciprocity within academic-community research partnerships.