Abstract
Youth research is an adult-centric process despite attempts to make it participant-led. In the current risk-averse climate research ethics processes can produce unethical and violating results for participants. In this chapter, I argue that young people’s participation in qualitative research might be more helpfully understood as a parallel project. Reconceptualising the dynamic between researcher and participant in this way, and valuing young people’s reasons for participation, uncovers the potential for symbolic violence and cultural violence in adult-centric risk-averse ethics processes. Moreover, in contrast to the assumptions that often shape ethics applications and methods design, young people might be ‘keen as fuck’ (participant quote) to participate in research.
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Notes
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South Australia’s Child Protection Agency.
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A version of this chapter was originally published elsewhere. I thank the publisher of the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:
Lohmeyer, B. A. (2020). “Keen as Fuck”: Youth participation in qualitative research as ‘parallel projects’, Qualitative Research, 20(1), pp. 39-55. Copyright © 2020 SAGE. DOI:10.1177/1468794118816627
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Lohmeyer, B.A. (2020). Participatory Methods: The Violence of Adult Centricity. In: Youth and Violent Performativities. Perspectives on Children and Young People, vol 11. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5542-8_8
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