Paper short abstract:

Solidarity is essential in the construction of children speaking up as either noise or voice in ethnographic encounters. We draw on the participant observation of dialogic workshops with children to reflect on how sound is constructed as either ‘noise’ or ‘voice’ by children and adult researchers.

Paper long abstract:

Ethnographic research is one modality of conducting child-friendly research, as it allows for a highly contextualized immersion into the everyday lives of children. Noise has been studied as a form of resistance practiced by children in school settings. We want to expand this reflection with a focus on how sound becomes either ‘noise’ or ‘voice’ in the ethnographic encounter. We draw on participatory research with 11- 13-year-old children in six different schools in Romania. Participants engaged in drawing, photovoice, forum theater, and AI-enhanced storytelling about solidarity. All workshops were documented with field notes by adult women researchers. The noise appeared from the perspective of the adult ethnographers as ‘tiring’ and ‘bothersome’, yet it was also part of a co-created dialogic space that pointed to the desire of students to speak up. As such, ‘noise’ and ‘voice’ can be juxtaposed in the epistemic solidarity practices. While ‘noise’ may lead to the dis-engagement of adult researchers with participants and a subsequent form of de-solidarization, it also points to spontaneous emergence and fracture of solidarity practices between children - as they speak up, listen to, interrupt each other, and urge each other to listen. ‘Voice’ on the other hand, emerges when children are listened to, both by the adult researcher and their peers. Finally, music as a form of something worth being listened to according to children points to what transforms a sound into something that is not noise, namely collectively attributed relevance.