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Rights-Based Narrative Research: Empowerment of Children and Young People Experiencing Impacts of Trauma

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Narrating Childhood with Children and Young People

Part of the book series: Studies in Childhood and Youth ((SCY))

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Abstract

The year 2019 celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This milestone gives researchers cause to reflect on what has been learned about facilitating children’s empowerment and agency in the context of research. We might consider how such learnings have been applied and what remains to be achieved. That context gives rise to this chapter, which presents the author’s ongoing interest in collaborative approaches to rights-based narrative research with children and young people. It is proposed here that the cornerstones of a rights-based framework for children’s research comprise inclusion, participation, empowerment and advocacy. These four elements are complementary to the co-creation of narratives drawing on constructivist linguistic concepts. Together, those perspectives offer a framework for critically examining opportunities and challenges encountered in developing rights-based narrative research with children and young people with trauma experience. Core to that framework are issues of ideology, ethics, recruitment, agency, maturation and change, culture and language, gender and dissemination. A single Australian case study which formed part of cross-national research in child and family welfare is utilized to illustrate these issues. Based on this critique and the author’s broader narrative research experience, a set of principles to guide the conduct of rights-based narrative research with children and young people is suggested.

For the purpose of this volume, published by Springer International Publishing AG, Switzerland, under the imprint of Palgrave Macmillan, permission has been received from Qualitative Social Work (QSW) to partially republish Patricia McNamara’s (2011) article: ‘Rights-based narrative research with children and young people conducted over time’ (12(2), 135–152). Permission is granted for the life of the edition on a non-exclusive basis, in the English language, throughout the world in all formats provided full citation is made to the original SAGE publication. Permission does not include any third-party material found within the work.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Permission to conduct the Melbourne component of this cross-national project was provided by the La Trobe University Human Research Ethics Committee (LTU-UHEC, 2004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Work, University of Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Patricia McNamara

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  1. Patricia McNamara
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  1. Department of Social Sciences, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK

    Lisa Moran

  2. School of Geography, Archaeology and Irish Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

    Kathy Reilly

  3. UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, Institute for Lifecourse and Society, School of Political Science and Sociology, National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland

    Bernadine Brady

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McNamara, P. (2021). Rights-Based Narrative Research: Empowerment of Children and Young People Experiencing Impacts of Trauma. In: Moran, L., Reilly, K., Brady, B. (eds) Narrating Childhood with Children and Young People. Studies in Childhood and Youth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55647-1_16

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