Buraq Oral
Pronouns: he/him
Research Mentor(s): Mark Crain
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Dream of Detroit / NonUM
Program: UROP
Session: Session 7 (4:40pm – 5:30pm)
Authors: Buraq Oral, Alisa Perkins, Mark Crain
Abstract
The Dream of Detroit storytelling project is a community-based participatory research (CBPR) study that examines Black Muslim history in Detroit. This oral history initiative engages youth in the community in ethnographic interviewing research to create and take active roles in producing and disseminating the reflections and oral histories of Black Muslim elders within Detroit. The CBPR framework is essential to this project and its vision to empower the community by creating a collaborative space in which the community youth are involved in the preparation of, facilitation of, production of, and dissemination of these oral histories with their community elders. In addition to the oral histories, the Dream Storytelling Project engages community members such as activists, media experts, youth, mosque congregants, and neighborhood residents in the production of a digital archive, a documentary film, various publications, and a forthcoming website. This project aims to build on the legacies of past and current social justice efforts of Black Muslims in Detroit by filling in the knowledge gap of Black Muslim community leadership in Detroit. Through participant observation within the work that the Dream Storytelling project partakes in, CBPR proves to be an essential and beneficial driver of the work that Dream is doing in empowering its residents with a voice and role in the organization and production of history, the present, and the future.
