Methodological and ethical dilemmas in research with young people: perplexities, possibilities and refusals
A BSA Youth Study Group Event
16 September 2025 (14:00-16:30)
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
About the Event
In the edited book, The methodological dilemma revisited (2018), scholars are encouraged to think of moments during the research process that have ‘stopped them in their tracks’ – not as obstacles, but as reflexive opportunities to pause and attend to the politics of knowledge production. Such moments bring to the fore methodological and ethical dilemmas and questions. Rather that treating such dilemmas as something to solve, such moments offer an opportunity to ‘sit or move along with’ these dilemmas - generating new opportunities to unlearn research practices and patterns and prompt different ways of thinking, feeling and/ or representing young people.
Hosted by the BSA Youth Study Group, this in-person event aims to create space for attendees to share (in small groups) an example of a methodological and ethical dilemma they have experienced in their research with young people. Dilemmas may relate to any stage of the research process and will act as pedagogical stimuli for group discussion, community-building and collaboration. We will aim to foster a space for humility and compassion for those newer to the academy and those who are all too familiar with its enclosures. Please fill out this form describing the dilemma (deadline: 5 September 2025).
We are excited to be joined by Dr Eve Mayes from Deakin University, Australia, who will open the event with a short keynote (see abstract). We will then break into smaller break-out groups to share and discuss methodological and ethical dilemmas. After these break-groups, we will collectively respond to these disclosed dilemmas through a creative collaging activity facilitated by Eve Mayes. This collective collaging process will not seek to pin down answers to these dilemmas, but rather, to move with the ambiguities, perplexities, refusals and potential that they generate.
We hope the event will lead to possible collaborative outputs and will make space to discuss what forms these may take as part of the discussions.
We will be using £500 of the study groups funds to enable attendees to claim expenses for their travel (maximum £100 each). Please email Harriet Rowley if you wish to use these funds, detailing the expected amount. Preference will be given to those who have offered to speak about a dilemma and BSA members.
A social will take place after the event at Sandbar, (M1 7HR) please feel free to stay for pizza and drinks.
Registration
The event is free to attend but registration is required.