Although the Guatemalan Civil War ended more than two decades ago, its bloody legacy continues to resonate even today. In Silenced Communities, author Marcia Esparza offers an ethnographic account of the failed demilitarization of the rural militia in the town of Santo Tomás Chichicastenango following the conflict. Combining insights from postcolonialism, subaltern studies, and theories of internal colonialism, Esparza explores the remarkable resilience of ideologies and practices engendered in the context of the Cold War, demonstrating how the lingering effects of grassroots militarization affect indigenous communities that continue to struggle with inequality and marginalization.

This book is a case study illustrating how one urban school district overcame barriers to allow for effective communication across ethnic and socioeconomic lines, enabling the community to build consensus on new policies and programs for elementary and middle school students at risk for educational failure. The information presented here will be of interest to all urban educators who believe that current policies and programs for at-risk students are failing and who are seeking new answers and ways forward.

This book bridges a major gap in knowledge by considering, through a range of reflexive chapters from different disciplinary backgrounds, both theoretical and practical issues relating to community research methodologies. The international contributors consider a number of key epistemological, ontological and methodological questions. They explore what community peer research means in a range of settings, for a range of people, for the quality of data and subsequent findings, and for the production of rigorous social research. The collection will also stimulate thinking about how methodological advancement can be made in the field. It is the first book of its kind to combine practical and methodological reflections with clearly presented recommendations about how the approach can be used. Presenting the latest thinking in the field and providing summaries, case studies and review questions, 'Community research for participation' will be invaluable to students, researchers, academics and practitioners who aim to place community members at the centre of their research.

This book provides an account of how local government units in the Philippines engage marginalized and geographically isolated communities in taking part in pre-disaster communication efforts. The book focuses on communities classified by the government as Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDA) on the culturally rich island of Mindanao, Philippines. The focus is centered on GIDA communities because they are assumed to receive less information and help in relation to their circumstances. This book accounts for the disaster preparedness communicative conditions of people living in GIDAS and identifies synergies and tensions in the engagement process. As such, specific branches of enquiry focus on how information-seeking and sharing experiences of GIDA communities inform the current practice of community engagement. In taking this research approach, this book deliberately gives voice to these marginalized and often silenced communities. In general, the study examines other possibilities (or variables) in the pre-disaster risk communication process that truly engage geographically isolated and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM). Considering the existing methodologies used to engage local communities in DRRM, this book looks at ways in which bottom-up and top-down approaches could be melded together for a transformational level of engagement in these communities. The novelty of addressing issues concerning geographically isolated communities in a developing country is a research track worthy of being investigated by academics. The book is of interest to students and in development communication and disaster risk communication as well as community engagement practitioners specializing in DRRM. The framework proposed in this book for engaging isolated communities is helpful to practitioners in designing, planning, and implementing pre-disaster communication and community engagement programs.

"Memory has fueled merciless, violent strife, and it has been at the core of reconciliation and reconstruction. It has been used to justify great crimes, and yet it is central to the pursuit of justice. In these and more everyday ways, we live surrounded by memory, individual and social: in our habits, our names, the places where we live, street names, libraries, archives, and our citizenship, institutions, and laws. Still, we wonder what to make of memory and its gifts, though sometimes we are hardly even certain that they are gifts. Of the many chambers in this vast palace, I mean to ask particularly after the place of memory in politics, in the identity of political communities, and in their practices of doing justice."—from the Preface W. James Booth seeks to understand the place of memory in the identity, ethics, and practices of justice of political communities. Identity is, he believes, a particular kind of continuity across time, one central to the possibility of agency and responsibility, and memory plays a central role in grounding that continuity. Memory-identity takes two forms: a habitlike form, the deep presence of the past that is part of a life-led-in-common; and a more fragile, vulnerable form in which memory struggles to preserve identity through time—notably in bearing witness—a form of memory work deeply bound up with the identity of political communities. Booth argues that memory holds a defining place in determining how justice is administered. Memory is tied to the very possibility of an ethical community, one responsible for its own past, able to make commitments for the future, and driven to seek justice. "Underneath (and motivating) the politics of memory, understood as contests over the writing of history, over memorials, museums, and canons," he writes, "there lies an intertwining of memory, identity, and justice." Communities of Memory both argues for and maps out that intertwining.

Discover how and why community-engaged teacher preparation is a powerful and vital approach to address an educational system that is historically deficient, discriminatory, and decidedly inequitable. In this edited volume, the authors argue that past practice is inadequate and issue a mandate for a new approach to educator preparation. Articulating a clear definition of community-engaged teacher preparation, they focus on national and international initiatives that have been sustained over time and are having a direct impact on student learning. Chapters are written by school, university, and community partners who speak to the innovation, creativity, commitment, and persistence required to reinvent teacher preparation. They also underscore the complexity of this work, the humility necessary to reflect and reconsider, and the true spirit of authentic solidarity among university, school, and community partners required to seek and secure equity for children in schools. Book Features: Provides a critical examination of structural inequity in education and ways to address it through community-engaged teacher preparation. Describes a teacher preparation model that is enacted in solidarity with members of historically marginalized populations.Offers clear guidance on what is meant by culturally relevant and culturally sustaining pedagogies with examples of how these frameworks are being operationalized.Explores the obstacles and opportunities involved in the implementation process. “A collection of powerful authors who offer theoretical considerations, evidence-based approaches, and practical considerations for not just teacher education as usual but community-engaged teacher education.” —From the Foreword by Tyrone C. Howard, University of California, Los Angeles

Drawing primarily from critical traditions in social and educational research, this book frames contemporary issues and several conceptual, theoretical-analytical and onto-epistemic approaches towards the development and practice of PAR (Participatory Action Research) in multiple educational spaces and initiatives for socio-cultural change.