Teologando Abuelita-mente (Abuelita Theology): A Participatory Action Research (PAR) Methodology of the Classroom

How can participatory action research (PAR) methodology inform practical theology within a creative course that integrates sources from U.S. Latina/x and Mujerista theologies as critical categories?

This proposal explores Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology in a creative undergraduate course titled *Abuelita Theology* [Grandma Theology]. This course integrates sources from U.S. Latina/x and Mujerista theologies and uses *Abuelita Theology* as a metaphor for understanding grassroots wisdom and everyday practices (lo cotidiano) as a theological source. In this course, students are active participants who learn and create new knowledge. In addition, students are encouraged to correlate the class sources with their own lived experiences, social locations, and faith identities as a liberatory practice.

The *Abuelita Theology* course emerged from generative themes discovered in original participatory action research (PAR) among first and second-generation college-age Latinas who self-identified as Catholics, regardless of their local church participation or ministry involvement. The research process led to listening to insights college-age Latinas had about their social locations and lived experiences, which were critical to understanding their faith identity and spirituality.

In my presentation, I will explore how students in this course actively dialogue with critical categories from Latina and Mujerista theologies, which attend to lived experiences and practices as essential in the process of participation and action. To achieve this, I integrate the work of Ada María Isasi-Díaz and utilize categories such as the communal dimension of lo cotidiano (the everyday), the dynamic understanding of la lucha (or the struggle towards liberation from oppressive categories of the dominant culture), and permitanme hablar (allow me to speak) as the call to listen and affirm people’s insights and concerns.

I intend to provide an example of participatory and reflective action practice (praxis) used within the course. I call this "Abuelita [Grandma] Theology Mini-Panels: Cuéntame Una Historia (Tell Me a Story)." In this creative practice, students present their final research papers using storytelling in a setting beyond the classroom. I collaborate with the Center for Teaching and Learning and the University Library to transform their gathering spaces into a physical re-enactment of a sala (living/community room)—an ordinary space for collective knowledge, dialogue, and action. I have observed how my students, as panelists, creatively integrate their own storytelling and concrete social realities while also dialogue with class sources. In addition, this reflective action process (praxis) invites them to inquire and imagine more humane ways of being and becoming in society, the church, and the academy. 

Finally, I will reflect on how this process is what Conde-Frazier calls an “incarnational research,” which humanizes the teaching and learning process and empowers participants, allowing them to articulate and “reflect theologically on their practices” (The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology, 2012). In this case, this is to theologize *abuelita-mente*. By engaging the people as active participants, as they articulate and reflect theologically on their practices, we can reimagine the field of practical theology in the twenty-first century.