Paper short abstract:

This paper examines research into the impacts of social cash transfers on rural youth in Malawi and Lesotho which involves young people directly in analysing the processes that produce and perpetuate poverty in their communities, and the role of such research in informing policy and practice.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is based upon plans for research that will be undertaken as part of a project exploring the impacts of social cash transfers (such as child grants and old age pensions) on relations of age, gender and generation, focusing in particular on the effects on young adults in rural Malawi and Lesotho. The research begins with interviews with young people who participated in a previous project, to explore how their lives have changed over the intervening eight years. The second stage - the focus of this paper - will involve the same young people in participatory workshops in which they explore the processes that produce and perpetuate poverty in their communities, and how social cash transfers intervene in these. The workshop activities will be based on Freirean pedagogy and developed in discussion between the researchers and the participants. Techniques such as drawing, diagramming, drama and participatory video will involve young people in the identification and analysis of structural relations, stimulating critical analysis and active co-learning. The workshops will develop messages to put to policy makers with a view to communicating not only young people's experiences of poverty and social policy, but also their analyses of their situations. The paper will focus on the rationale for this approach, how it has been developed from previous efforts at enabling young research participants' voices to be heard in policy arenas, and the anticipated challenges.