Vulnerable and victimized children's participation in research processes

• The paper is based upon an ongoing explorative research project on children as social actors in investigation processes in legal conflicts concerning child custody, contact or residence with particular focus on children whose father is violent to the mother. Drawing upon interviews with 17 girls and boys, who have participated in such processes, we discuss what we may learn from these interviews when it comes to developing anti-oppressive practices when vulnerable and victimised children are included in family law investigations as well as when they are informants in research. In particular, we focus upon the organisation of interview processes and interactions between adult researchers and child informants in interview encounters. We point to a number of ways in which it may be possible to negotiate the tensions between, on the one hand, victimized children’s vulnerability and dependence upon adults for protection and support, and, on the other hand, these children’s agency and rights to participation. The aim is to show how research practices may simultaneously follow, on the one hand, principles of children’s citizenship and rights to democratic participation, and on the other hand, principles of protection, support, ‘recognition’ and ‘affirmation’ of experiences of violence.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Publikations- och innehållstyp

pop (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)