Critical Participatory

Action Research
in Barrio Playa,
Ponce, Puerto Rico.
David Southgate, Ph.D. candidate
Senior Research Associate – Robert Schalkenbach Foundation
| dsouthgate@schalkenbach.org| 787-590-5294
PRESENTATION FOR RSF PROGRESS OF IDEAS SCHOLARS AND FELLOWS EVENT
APRIL 18, 2024 @ VIRTUAL ZOOM EVENT
Overview
• The Community – Playa de Ponce
• The Problem – Climate adaptation and social
inequity within planning and research
• The Root Cause – Theoretical Framework:
Critical Disaster Studies
• The Method – Critical Participatory Action
Research
• The Research Agenda – Work to date
• What’s Next – Work on the Horizon
Playa de Ponce
– In overview
• La Playa (Playa de Ponce) - one
of Ponce’s 31 barrios
• Playa has 19+ neighborhoods
• An historic port city established
under Spanish rule
• A separate cultural and social
identity from rest of Municipality
• Population decline from 20,000 +
in 1970 to 11,400 people today
Economic
Development
produced…
 Introduction –
Justice Focused
Climate Adaptation
• To persist, low lying coast settlements in island-
state settlements will need to adapt to Climate
Change even if the world meets GHG emissions
targets (IPCC, 2023).
• Empirical land use data and planning regimes
influence Climate Policy, from which stem formal
climate adaptation measures (Malstrom et al.,
2024).
• However, empirical data informing land-use and
planning has its problems, affecting social equity.
 The “public interest”
– What’s right? What’s Moral?
• Is it morally acceptable to sacrifice minority interests if doing so
maximizes utility for the majority?
• Rights argument: Government decisions and actions should
produce the greatest happiness for the largest number of people
[utilitarianism] (Bentham, 1781; Mill, 1863).
• Moral argument: Government interventions should result in a fair
and just society (Rawls, 1999).
• Rights- and morals-based arguments:
• Land is a birthright and government decisions should
safeguard equitable distribution and access to land (George,
1879).
• Government has the legal authority to plan, but should be
transparent, accountable and responsive to those who will be
affected by such decisions (Campbell et al., 2002).
Land, economic development, and oppression
• Oppression: the distributed disadvantages and
injustices that occur daily in a liberal society (Young,
2014).
• Exploitation (people and their neighborhoods as
commodities)
• Powerless to make or shape decisions
• Cultural imperialism (white supremacy), i.e., the
dominant group is the norm.
• State sanctioned violence and displacement as a
social norm.
Flawed planning processes and their exercise of hegemonic power

• Planning as the
ritual that maintains
the status quo.
• Allows government officials and
planners to claim “legitimacy”
because of public consultation.

(Arnstein, 1969, p. 216)

Theoretical •Climate disasters are the “outcomes of social processes
set in motion by human priorities and decisions” (Oliver-
Framework Smith, 2021, p. 139).
 Critical Disaster Studies: A
framework for understanding the
root cause of Climate Disasters
• Disasters are socially created (Oliver-Smith, 2021).
• White lives and capitalist extraction of nature are
historically privileged over the well-being of
oppressed groups (Oliver-Smith, 2021; Bullard,
1990; Pullido, 2015; Been, 1994; Nixon, 2011)
• The result is the unequal spatial distribution of
hazardous settlements among the social strata
(Oliver-Smith, 2021).
• Rooted in the critical studies tradition: social,
cultural, and political power relations constrain
efforts to achieve social equity.
Critical Participatory Action Research
Methodological Framework
 What is Critical
Participatory
Action Research?

• An epistemology orientation that

coproduces knowledge about the
world.
• Rejects notions of research objectivity,
replacing it with individual and
collective critical self-reflection.
• A form of applied research oriented
towards action (Kimmes et al., 2014).
Linking theory,
method and
practice
• Critical Disaster Studies
Theoretical Framework and
Critical Participatory Action
Research are rooted in action and
liberation from oppression.
Working for a Resilient Future in Playa de Ponce

EMBEDDED RESEARCH
Community-rooted research & planning agenda
in south Puerto Rico's largest coastal neighborhood.

15
 Left to right: UNA co-founders, Vice president, Pastor Roberto
Ortiz, and president, Ramón Figueroa, along with
resident/community developer David Southgate.

• A domestic non-profit, community-rooted all volunteer organization formed in March

18, 2018 to improve the quality of life for residents of Playa de Ponce, Puerto Rico.
Embedding myself • November, 2022 achieved 501c3 status.
in community via • Hosts eight organizations tied to social resilience at its headquarters at 1530 Ave.
Eduardo Ruberte in Barrio Playa de Ponce.
Un Nuevo • The only CBO in Playa working on community resilience & adaptation.
Amanecer, Inc. • Represents and collaborates with leaders from across 19 neighborhoods.
• As a community development scholar-practitioner and neighbor, David Southgate is a
(UNA) board member and advisor to UNA. Institutional collaborations, obtain funding,
transfer expert knowledge (lived and academic), co-create data & community-
16
informed solutions to climate displacement and climate change.
Research
agenda
• Water quality and contamination
• Household perceptions on flooding
(lived experience data, contrasts
with FEMA flood maps)
• Place abandonment (spatial
documentation) – 170 abandoned
spaces
• Household survey on flooding and
desired climate adaptations (n=240)
Water quality survey 2017

Funded by private donations.

Technical assistance from EPA
Region 2’s Participatory
Research Equipment Loan
Program.
Water
quality
survey
2017
 Resident
perceptions
of flooding
-- 2022

Pass through funding from the River

Network.
Technical assistance from el Centro
para la Reconstrucción de Hábitat.
Contrast
with
FEMA
FIRM Map
Abandonment / Unused Space
Inventory of
Abandoned
Places -- 2022

Funded by the River Network.

Technical assistance from el
Centro para la Reconstrucción
de Hábitat.
Inventory
Abandone
d Places --
2022
Household Flood Survey – Method and timeline

Cross sectional, Convenience Coproduced survey Surveying process

exploratory, sample, 11 Jan, 2022 to Dec. 2022; Door-to-door surveys – 8
Participatory Action neighborhood May, 2023 to 18 Aug.,
2023
Research, based on selection based on
Digital surveys via
the Impact community handheld Android tablets
Assessment Tool feedback connected to the cloud
developed by the Paper surveys distributed
Housing and Land in San Tomás
Rights Network

Pass-through funding from the Climigration Network, Anthropocene

Alliance, and Buy-In Community Planning.
Technical assistance from Buy-in Community Planning. Citizen field researchers interviewing neighbors.
What did the community survey reveal?
Findings across 7 communities. n = 240 households
What consideration is MOST important to you
if you decided to move to a residence that is
less likely to flood?
82% responded that the safety of their family
and home.

What circumstances might make the decision

to move to a more flood-safe home easier?
67% responded rental assistance or money for a
security deposit.

If you are interested in moving, where would

you like to move?
66% responded "another house/residence" in
Ponce Beach.
8% to "another place in the Ponce metropolitan
area".
8% to "another place in Puerto Rico.
17% to "another destination or location".
 WHAT’S NEXT?
Agenda
• National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, National Coastal
JUSTICE IN
Resilience Fund grant to build capacity around coastal
habitat restoration/protective nature-based solutions for RESEARCH,
Ponce Bay.
• EPA Community Change Equity and Resilience Technical PLANNING, AND
Assistance to coproduce designs for a resilience hub and
green infrastructure to mitigate riverine flooding for the
Parcelas Amalia Marín neighborhood in Playa.
ACTION
• EPA Community Change Grant for project
implementation.
• Complete FEMA BRIC DTA and apply for funding.
• Dissertation proposal, research and defense.
Despair is a luxury we can no longer afford.
How to avoid despair? Perhaps by putting “good neighborliness”
into practice.

“[The spirit of loving one’s

neighbor has] the power to
solve social problems and carry
civilization onward” (Peddle &
Pierce, 2018, p. 234)

Henry George at 32, photograph from 1871.