The aim of this study is two-fold: (1) to promote a model of youth participatory research and offer a window of understanding into how it can be enacted and (2) to understand…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is two-fold: (1) to promote a model of youth participatory research and offer a window of understanding into how it can be enacted and (2) to understand youth perspectives on youth empowerment. This study asks: “how can youth help us understand youth empowerment?”
Design/methodology/approach
The study applies youth participatory action research (YPAR) and interpretative phenomenological analysis. The study illustrates how to enact a model of YPAR by engaging youth in the process of research in a youth-serving community non-profit organization.
Findings
This study sets out to make two important contributions, one methodological and one theoretical: First, the study contributes to our understanding of the opportunities and benefits of youth-engaged, peer-to-peer research. Specifically, this study promotes a model of youth participatory action research and knowledge making processes, and the associated social and formal benefits for youth. By extension, this study illustrates an approach to engage youth in formal contexts which has implications for both management and organizational studies and education. Finally, the study extends our understanding and conceptualization of the phenomenon of youth empowerment (as informed by youth perspectives).
Originality/value
The study offers insight into how to conduct youth participatory action research and specifically how to address two limitations cited in the literature: (1) how to authentically engage youth including how to share power, and (2) how to perform youth participatory action research, often critiqued as a black box methodology.
Details
Keywords
Ilaria Boncori and Kristin Samantha Williams
This article explores memory work and storytelling as an organising tool through family histories, offering theoretical and methodological implications and extending existing…
Abstract
Purpose
This article explores memory work and storytelling as an organising tool through family histories, offering theoretical and methodological implications and extending existing conceptualisations of memory work as a feminist method. This approach is termed as impressionist memory work.
Design/methodology/approach
To illustrate impressionistic memory work in action, the article presents two family histories set during Second World War and invite the reader to engage in the “undoing” of these stories and dominant ways of knowing through storytelling. This method challenges the taken-for-granted roles, plots and detail of family histories to uncover the obscured or silenced stories within, together with feminine, affective and embodied subjectivities, marginalisation and social inequalities.
Findings
This study argues that impressionistic memory work as a feminist method can challenge the silencing and gendering of experiences in co-constructed and co-interpreted narratives (both formal and informal ones).
Originality/value
This study shows that engagement with impressionistic memory work can challenge taken-for-granted stories with prominent male actors and masculine narratives to reveal the female actors and feminine narratives within. This approach will offer a more inclusive perspective on family histories and deeper engagement with the marginalised or neglected actors and aspects of our histories.