Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to discuss the use of photo-elicitation and the sharing of a piece of music as a point of departure for second wave longitudinal interviews with young people aged 17–30 years. More specifically, such an approach was used to support the young people in gaining control and planning what they share in research. I argue that photo-talk and music-talk brought forward a dialogue whereby the participants acted as co-researchers, but in two different ways: (1) photo-elicitation empowered the participants to represent what was important in their everyday lives, whereas (2) playing music together created a sensory space—a zoning of the interview—that facilitated the sharing of difficult emotions and unlived lives related to past events. I conclude that through a combination of music-talk and photo-talk, the participants told two very different stories about growing up in care, but still from their own perspectives, as through these mediums they choose what to include or exclude in their life stories.
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Notes
- 1.
The theoretical outline of music in everyday life and an analysis of two cases using music as a creative method have been published by the author together with Signe Ravn in a Danish book (see Ravn & Østergaard, 2018). Thus, I would like to acknowledge Signe for this work. In this chapter, however, I develop the concept of music-talk with the aim of comparing it to photo-talk, and thus I extend and frame the analysis differently. I would also like to thank Professor Janet Boddy for introducing music as a method in our cross-national project Against all Odds?
- 2.
The participating organisations were: LOS—National association of residences, DAV—Conditions of children in care, TABUKA —National Association of present end earlier youngsters in care, FADD—Association of Danish residential homes for children and young people and FBU—National Association of parents.
- 3.
One participant said she could not find a song to share, and another had clearly forgotten about the task but chose a song during the interview. All participants took some photos; however, two participants had clearly forgotten and only took a few photos on their way to the second interview.
- 4.
I suggest that the reader listens to the songs on YouTube to get a sense of how the interview was zoned, as Torben tells his life story.
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Funding
This chapter draws on research conducted for the project Against All Odds? funded by the Research Council of Norway. Grant number 236718 and VIVE—the Danish National Center for Social Science Research.
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Østergaard, J. (2021). Photo-Talk and Music-Talk Among Young People (Formerly) in Care. In: Wulf-Andersen, T., Follesø, R., Olsen, T. (eds) Involving Methods in Youth Research. Studies in Childhood and Youth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75941-4_6
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