| This dissertation study is driven by the possibility of a raza research methodology (RRM) which asks Chicano/a scholar activists to re-imagine and re-invent a decolonizing research strategy by, and in the interests of, raza communities. Building from the principles outlined by Chicano/a scholars in El Plan de Santa Barbara and later in the original goals of the National Association for Chicano and Chicana Studies (NACCS), this two year auto-ethnographic study of my experiences as a community organizer and member of the Association of Raza Educators (ARE) explores a fundamental dimension in teacher-led social justice movements: community organizing as a spatial practice that enables transformative pedagogies and methodologies.;Building from a critical personal narrative of my transition from university researcher to community organizer, I analyze the production of action-research within two ARE campaigns: the South Los Angeles Elementary and the Education Not Arms Coalition campaigns. In both campaigns, I look at the relation between pedagogy, research, and community organizing, developing the thesis that community organizing and organization are primary, spatial praxes in decolonizing research projects. Furthermore, this study looks at a distinct ARE project: political education. Via auto/ethnography and in-depth interviews with ARE teachers I study the inter-relation between political education and the praxes of pedagogy, action-research, and community-organizing, working towards the development of a second thesis: political education functions as the ideological groundwork in decolonizing projects. The study concludes with a discussion of an emerging (arid contested) conceptualization of teachers as community organizers. |
