ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept of participation in residential care settings through a lens of power. It is argued that many approaches to furthering participation in residential care settings are aesthetic in nature on the one hand and procedural on the other hand. This often results in the design of participatory structures and processes that are difficult to operationalize in real-life contexts. Empirically, we can observe that many young people who live in residential care settings across geographic jurisdictions continue to experience far more moments in which they do not matter as opposed to moments in which they do matter. Although approaches to participation often do focus on centering young people in care provision and related decision-making, such centering of young people does not transcend the fundamental power imbalances between professionals and young people. Ultimately, the metaphor of “playing a game” is suggested as a way of conceptualizing participation in ways that create meaningful interdependency in decision-making and in the everyday experience of the social context of residential care settings.
