Relational Autonomy as a Way to Recognise and Enhance Children’s Capacity and Agency to be Participatory Research Actors

ABSTRACT

There has been a marked increase in the active involvement of children and young people in social research. This move is underpinned by rights based arguments that children and young people should have a voice, and that this voice should be listened to. However, concerns have been raised about the appropriateness of children’s and young people’s rights and participation in research. This is primarily due to queries over whether they have enough capacity to enact the individual agency required to be rights holders and participate in research. In addition, a focus on their inherent vulnerability continues to be a key feature of research ethics protocols. In this paper I argue that both capacity and vulnerability should be seen as socially produced, meaning that the scope for capacity to be increased and vulnerability decreased also lies within the social. I draw from notions of relational autonomy or ‘associational presence’ to argue that what children and young people need to be active participants in research is the creation of spaces within which relational agency can be nurtured and sustained. Such techniques and values are found in participatory research approaches and can be used to create such emancipatory environments.

KEYWORDS:

• Children
• young people
• research ethics
• participatory research

Acknowledgements

I first presented the ideas discussed here at the Extending Voice and Autonomy through Participatory Action Research: Ethical and Practical Issues Workshop hosted by the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action, Durham University in November 2018. I would like to thank the participants and organisers for all the discussions that day.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Professor Janice McLaughlin’s research examines how different contexts, actors and institutions shape many aspects of disabled children and young people’s lives. Looking at issues such as medical diagnosis and treatment, family life, transitions to adulthood and access to citizenship.

ORCID

Janice McLaughlin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0652-5225