Outtake: It’s not Always Black and White: Reflections on Research Design, Participant Recruitment, and Data Collection

I began working on my dissertation research in early 2022. My goal was to find participants to interview regarding their experiences with changes in the schools and the broader community of South Memphis, Tennessee. South Memphis is a predominantly Black community adjacent to the city’s downtown core. Over the past 25 years, residents of South Memphis have faced several public-school closures and the demolition of public housing complexes, drastically changing the landscape. In preparing my research design, it was essential to center the voices of those marginalized community members who have been at the receiving end of policies and practices that have since made their neighborhoods unrecognizable.