Paper short abstract:

Drawing on research with angling based youth intervention programs, this paper reflects on angling as an introspective methodological tool. It advocates an unhurried ethnographic approach that capitalises on young people's own coping mechanisms, allowing them time to articulate complex emotions.

Paper long abstract:

Research on young people is shaped by innovative, participatory approaches that are particularly effective for accessing young people's voices within time constrained research programs. However an unhurried ethnographic approach that allows both researcher and young person to simply share time/space is valuable for engaging young people suspicious or antagonistic to authority figures, and where emotional motivations are difficult to articulate or yet to be fully realised. This paper reflects on two years ethnographic research on UK angling-based intervention programs with young people aged 13-18. It explores how angling, adopted by young people as a coping activity, can become a methodological tool for discussing emotionally complex topics.

Young people proactively use angling to regulate emotions and carve spaces beyond the reach of daily pressures. In situating interviews on the bankside, young people are able to draw upon angling as a resource to articulate difficult thoughts and feelings. On the bankside young people experience a space outside the 'everyday world', where they engage in productive work that is both completely absorbing (providing mental and emotional breaks), and providing opportunities for mind-drifting reflection. Fishing alongside in this time/space, one synchronises with these patterns, asking questions answered hours later in time stretched moments of clarity. In taking an adjacent rather than face-to-face approach, where young people can vary the intensity of discussions, bankside ethnography embraces young people's own coping mechanisms within research methodology, providing young people greater control over the research process and offering opportunities to express complex emotions.