In the space between us: reflections for adult audience members of youth-centered participatory research

Abstract

Performances of research are moments of encounter – between audience and performer, between audience and researcher, and in the instance of youth-centered critical participatory action research, between adults and young people. This piece considers the form and metaphor of artistic performances of research to interrogate the social constructions of adolescent and adult. Using an analysis of adult audience responses to five artistically embodied performances of youth-centered research, I focus on adult audience members’ declarations of shock, appeals for direction about taking action, and expressions of feeling inspired by the youth and their research. Through an analysis of these audience responses, I consider how research narratives travel, how data is interpreted, how power might be (re)arranged, and especially the ways that research performances can be an opportunity for making sense of and radically re-imagining adulthood, adolescence, and the spaces between us.

Keywords:

• Critical participatory action research
• critical youth studies
• arts-based research
• playback theatre
• epistemologies of ignorance
• youth participatory action research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Many youth-centered participatory action research projects present and share before and with a range of different audiences. This article is focused the particular circumstance of adult and mostly academic audiences.

2 The Polling for Justice project was made possible thanks to the Surdna Foundation, Overbrook Foundation, Hazen Foundation, Glass Foundation, Schott Foundation, the ADCO Foundation, Urban Youth Collaborative, the Public Science Project, and the Youth Studies Research Fund at the CUNY Graduate Center

3 Encounter – across generation or race or other distances - is certainly not always sought-after nor desired.

Additional information

Funding

The Polling for Justice Project was supported by Overbrook Foundation, Glass Foundation, Hazen Foundation, Schott Foundation for Public Education, Surdna Foundation, the ADCO Foundation, the Urban Youth Collaborative, and the Youth Studies Research Group at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Notes on contributors

Madeline Fox

Madeline Fox, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Children & Youth Studies at Brooklyn College.