Environmental scientists in the field: Lessons learned connecting to the local experience, network, and knowledge as an Environmental Toxicology outsider in a small Californian agricultural community

Abstract:

Field work is fundamental to many disciplines of environmental science and unfortunately most of this research can be considered extractive. Professional researchers often take information from communities without contributing to the community in a meaningful way. Although many professionally trained scientists go through summer field camp or field-trip based classes, many of us do not develop community-engagement skills. This presentation will detail the type of community organizing, outreach, and partnership development training for academic researchers that enabled a sustainable and productive community-student partnership. The community of focus is Knights Landing, California, which is a small agricultural town with concerns about potentially toxic exposures to pollution through private-well water and air. The project began as an interdisciplinary academic partnership in response to community leaders’ call for action and used a Community Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) approach. Community leaders made decisions for this project from initiation and funding to results dissemination based on input from the academic members of the research team. A co-learning and collaborative process between student researchers and community leaders was used to build the environmental justice research and action plan. Over 4 years, the project expanded to deal with community- and student- initiated concerns about public health and community success. This presentation will include the perspectives of an Environmental Toxicologist, a Geographer / Chicana/o Scholar, and community leaders involved in this academic-community CBPAR partnership.