Resisting Methods – How Children’s and Young People’s Refusals, Circumventions, and Evasions of Research into Their Media Practices Generate Knowledge about Those Very Practices: How Children’s and Young People’s Refusals, Circumventions, and Evasions of Research into Their Media Practices Generate Knowledge about Those Very Practices

Abstract
Topic
In this paper we experiment with interpreting children’s and young people’s evasions, refusals, and circumventions of research methods as forms of resistance, and we reflect on how these forms of resistance generate knowledge about precisely that which the research methods themselves were intended to produce knowledge about.
The discussion draws insights from a research project on leisure pedagogues work with children and young people’s media-practices in leisure- and youth clubs.
In this paper, we focus on the parts of the empirical material where we encountered challenges with the method: digital logbooks (Sauzet et al., 2024).
Theory
We draw on Foucault’s theory of forms of resistance (Foucault, 1982), which enables an understanding of how power is experienced. We connect this perspective to post-qualitative approaches, which open possibilities for interpreting wordless and subtle forms of resistance and for understanding methods as ways of engaging with the world rather than as “can openers” (MacLure et al., 2010; Spyrou, 2016).
Methodology
In the project, we investigated, together with children, young people, and pedagogues as co-researchers, the media practices of children and young people in after-school clubs and youth clubs, as well as the pedagogues’ work with these practices. The aim was to generate knowledge about how children’s and young people’s media practices shape their everyday lives in the clubs and influence the pedagogical work, and explore new pedagogical approaches to working with this.
The paper elaborates on the challenges we encountered in the first phase of the project, regarding the method ‘Digital logbooks’ where children and young people operate as co-researchers.
Digital logbooks are a method in which participants are asked to take screenshots or photos of their practices involving social or digital media over a specified period, preferably accompanied by short descriptive texts. When the period concludes, the logbook serves as the basis for an interview in which the participant can elaborate on and contextualize the screenshots or photos they have chosen to present.
Findings
In reading and reflecting on the fieldwork and interviews with children and young people, we identify refusals, circumventions, and evasions as forms of resistance to our research methods. Rather than interpreting resistance as a failure of the methods, we understand it as an indication of the fact that our attempts to approach their perspectives challenged their values and boundaries regarding their media practices.
Relevance
The resistance to the method prompts reflections on what happens when we “invite” children and young people to participate as co-researchers.
Bibliography
Foucault, M. (1982). The Subject and Power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777–795.
MacLure, M., Holmes, R., Jones, L., & MacRae, C. (2010). Silence as Resistance to Analysis: Or, on Not Opening One’s Mouth Properly. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(6), 492–500. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800410364349
Sauzet, S., Jakobsen, J., & Karstoft, B. (2024). Digitale logbøger: – Undersøgelser af unges sociale mediepraksisser som afsæt for fritidspædagogisk udvikling. Forskning i Pædagogers Profession og Uddannelse, 8(1), 9. https://doi.org/10.7146/fppu.v8i1.144792
Spyrou, S. (2016). Researching children’s silences: Exploring the fullness of voice in childhood research. Childhood, 23(1), 7–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568215571618