Participatory research among youth – too little, too much, too romanticised?

This chapter describes participatory research processes which involved young refugee women and men as co-researchers, opening critically and self-reflectively the methodological underpinnings, research styles and experiences of the research collaborations. The aim of the chapter is to respond to two types of criticism that have recently been expressed towards participatory research methods: that participatory studies mostly remain adult-centred and participatory methods are still often uncritically and naively seen to give access to authentic realities of youth. While acknowledging both arguments as useful points for critical reflection, the authors see great potential in practices of knowledge co-construction. Furthermore, based on the idea presented in the book’s Introduction, according to which research collaboration can be considered as one type of societal participation, the chapter scrutinises what kind of potential participation in a co-research process can have in promoting the sustainable well-being of young people. The authors end up defending participatory and co-research methodologies with young people, but with a strong commitment to researcher reflexivity and willingness to involve young co-researchers’ views in evaluating the research process.