Paper Short Abstract:

This paper examines the methodological and ethical challenges of accessing children’s voices in same-sex families in France. In contexts where secrecy and silence shape family dynamics, children navigate complex strategies of disclosure and concealment. Drawing on ethnographic research, I explore how fieldwork can reveal the circulation of speech within families and offer children opportunities to articulate previously unspeakable experiences.

Paper Abstract:

Secrecy and silence are pervasive dimensions in the lives of same-sex families, shaped by their relational dynamics and the social status of homosexuality. Many homosexual individuals have long concealed their sexuality, and this silence can persist in family life. For instance, parents may encourage their children to hide their family structure from peers, or children might choose to reveal it only selectively. These strategies often aim to mitigate the risk of stigma and protect the family.

In my ethnographic research with same-sex parents, children, and their relatives, I encountered different narratives about the same events, revealing the complexity of accessing these voices. At times, I became a privileged interlocutor to whom things were revealed that were otherwise kept secret within the family. This raises ethical questions about how the ethnographer should use or share these confidences, as their presence shapes family dynamics. How can fieldwork prompt questions about the circulation of speech within families? How do children position themselves within these processes? And how can researchers access children’s voices in such contexts?

These methodological challenges require careful consideration of the contexts in which children break the silence and share their experiences. The research process sometimes provides them with an opportunity to emerge from silence and express what was previously unspeakable. This paper will explore how I accessed children’s voices in same-sex families, emphasizing both the roles of secrecy and silence and the ethical and methodological challenges posed by this research.

Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores innovative and ethical approaches to capturing the voices of children in child protection in France. Based on doctoral research, it highlights creative tools such as drawing, relationship constellations, and Instagram GIFs to understand children’s perspectives on family, relationships, and preferences. These methods, combined with interviews and feedback sessions, emphasize the importance of their active participation in sensitive contexts.

Paper Abstract:

This presentation is based on doctoral research in sociology, exploring the agency of children placed in child protection through creative and digital tools. This methodology and ethnographic work were conducted with 8 children aged 6 to 14 in two child protection institutions. Three main approaches were used to capture their perspectives with ethical considerations.

1. Drawing: Children were invited to represent their relatives or their visions of family and the future. This method allowed for free and sensitive expression on potentially delicate topics, with instructions that take their to their age and needs into account.

2. Relationship Constellations: Inspired by the family tree, this visual approach revisits familial and institutional relationships. It highlights dynamics such as conflicts, solidarities, or values, providing a richer understanding of intra- and extra-institutional relationships.

3. Instagram GIFs: This digital activity, aligned with children's practices, allowed an exploration of their preferences and create an interactive connection with the researcher . They categorized their preferences into two columns: what they like and what they dislike.

Each activity was followed by interviews to delve deeper into the emotions and meanings expressed, and by feedback sessions to validate the analysis with the children. This presentation will address the methodological challenges and emphasize the importance of innovative tools and an ethical approach to capturing children's voices in sensitive contexts.

Paper Short Abstract:

The inclusion of children with intellectual disabilities in research involves various issues and dilemmas that go beyond those considered in relation to children in general. It is essential to describe the challenges encountered during the conduct of inclusive research processes, as well as the compromises between inclusive postulates and social possibilities that the researcher faces. The paper presents my experiences: difficulties and my own attempts to respond to them, in research that I carried out with preschool children with intellectual disabilities.

Paper Abstract:

As a result of legal acts and activist movements, childhood and disability are no longer described only by the voices of parents or teachers talking “about them.” Research is increasingly being conducted “with”. Focusing on their experiences as competent people who have an impact on reality. Where the areas of disability and childhood intersect, there is research with children with disabilities, who are key stakeholders in their lives. This paper concerns my experiences regarding the participation of children with intellectual disabilities in research that I carried out as part of the project: Pandemic and post-pandemic children's worlds financed by the National Science Centre in Poland.The aim was to analyse the changes in society that have taken place with the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of young children.The participants of the interviews included groups of preschoolers.In Poland preschool is the stage where the success of inclusive education can be assessed highly.

The project was based on creative research methods and the principles of accessibility and assumed the spontaneous participation of children with diverse needs and abilities.However, including children with id turned out to be difficult and required a dynamic response.Describing the change in the place that children with id occupied in its,seems to me an interesting continuation of the postulate that descriptions of participatory research involving children with disabilities should more honestly present the experiences of challenges and successes.

Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores the participation of Cacua children in their indigenous community in the Colombian Amazon, my participation in the everyday lives of these children, and the children’s participation in this research. I explore how a ‘childlike’ curiosity to learn poses questions for anthropology.

Paper Abstract:

This paper explores the importance children’s learning through their participation in all kinds of everyday activities in the indigenous Cacua village where I undertook 18-months of fieldwork in the Colombian Amazon. In turn, I found that children, even as young as 3-years-old, enhanced my own learning through encouraging me to participate in tasks essential to living in their community, just as the adults and older children in their lives did with them. From reflecting on children’s participation in everyday activities in the household and wider community, and my participation in the everyday lives of these children, I reflect on children’s participation in this research through drawing, photo voice, photo elicitation and other so called ‘child friendly’ research methods. I explore the relationship between these different forms of participation, as well as relations of power as I learnt from children much more skilled than I in so many respects, but who also became dependent on me in different ways as I taught them ‘participatory methods.’ This reflection poses questions for anthropology more generally with regards to methodology, modes of participation, relations of power and the power of a ‘childlike’ curiosity to learn.

Paper Short Abstract:

Our contribution focuses on the new materialist Common Worlds approach who is just establishing himself in the Social Studies of Childhood. Drawing on aspects of various ethnographic approaches and an empirical example we present challenges and potentials that might inspire anthropology.

Paper Abstract:

The paradigms of childhood studies are subject to change. Transformed are the ways in which children are thought about, but also the status of more-than-humans and materiality in theory and empiricism. Such a shift has been initiated with the establishment of new materialist positions and their adaptation in childhood research (Murris 2016). In some respects, this shift coincides with perspectives of the New Social Studies of Childhood (NSSC). However, a new materialist perspective also arises in distinctions from NSSC (Balzer & Huf 2019) in that the subject is understood as ‘being/becoming-with’ multi-species entanglements. The subject thus is de-centralised while more-than-humans/materiality are revalorised. Notions of multi-species-world-making go hand in hand with an un-writing or rather re-writing of childhood and altered research practices: a new materialist-ethnography (Schadler 2025). The endeavour to de-centralise human subjects in an inevitably human ethnographic practice, to include more-than-humans as well as materiality, and to place relations at the centre is seen as both a challenge (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al. 2016) and an opportunity.

Our contribution is dedicated to the challenges and potentials of an ethnographic research practice that is theoretically grounded in the new materialist Common Worlds approach (Taylor 2013). Using an empirical example from the ethnographic project ‘Negotiating naturechildhoods. A common worlds ethnography in Swiss Kindergartens’ and with reference to considerations from multisensory and multi-species ethnographic debates, we highlight the challenges and potentials arising for ethnographic writing outlined in this way, and asking whether and how this can inform anthropology in its search for new approaches.

Paper Short Abstract:

Juvenile offenders can face loss of narrative control in the justice system. In 2023-2024, the podcast "The Other Side of the Coin" created a space to share stories, challenge stereotypes, reclaim voices, and foster dialogue with society highlighting the transformative power of self-narration.

Paper Abstract:

For juvenile offenders, who navigate adolescence within the rigid confines of the juvenile justice system, narrating their own stories can reveal significant challenges. On one hand, adolescents cling to a logic of secrecy, shaped by the habitual act of confessing every aspect of their private lives; on the other, their voices are often taken over by others within the juvenile justice process, who assume control of their story. Conducting research with these minors through traditional oral ethnographic methods can, therefore, prove complex.

Between September 2022 and March 2024, my ethnographic work explored strategies to enable these adolescents to express themselves, rethink their identities beyond imposed categories, and reclaim autonomy and privacy. Fieldwork highlighted their need for a collective space where their marginalized voices could disrupt stereotypes of the “young delinquent.”

In autumn 2023, this gave rise to the podcast "The Other Side of the Coin", a platform where participants shared their emotions, experiences, and reflections without fear or constraints. The podcast aimed to open a dialogue with broader society through a circular use of storytelling, moving beyond ethnographic objectives alone.

This space became a laboratory for personal and collective exploration, enabling participants to reimagine themselves beyond labels, critique the institutions shaping their lives, and reclaim ownership of their voices and secrets. The anonymity offered by the podcast’s audio format further empowered them to express themselves freely, fostering both introspection and resistance to external narratives. This approach underscored the transformative potential of self-narration in reshaping identities and relationships with society.

Paper Short Abstract:

This ethnographic case study explores how spatial dynamics, mobility, and translanguaging practices in a Chinese heritage school in Scotland shape students’ identity negotiation and learning. By unwriting fixed hierarchies of language, it fosters inclusivity and reimagines classroom spaces.

Paper Abstract:

This ethnographic case study examines how space, identity, and languages intersect in the context of a Chinese heritage school in Scotland. Chinese heritage language schools play a vital role in bridging the gap between Chinese culture and the broader host society, supporting students in navigating multiple ways of understanding, expressing, and engaging with the world. The study investigates how a physical, fixed, and static classroom environment transforms into an open, dynamic and flexible translanguaging space, where multilingual students negotiate identities shaped by global mobility and shifting linguistic, cultural, and ideological landscapes. Drawing on Lefebvre’s (1991) triadic theory of space and Li Wei’s (2011) translanguaging space framework, this research highlights the interplay of physical, conceived, and lived spaces in fostering identity negotiation and performance. This multifaceted approach captures students’ perceptions of physical space (e.g., classroom layout), conceived space (e.g., policies, grades, and teaching materials), and lived space (e.g., everyday social interactions). Through this spatial perspective, the study explores how students employ multiple language varieties (e.g., English and Chinese) and modes of communication (writing, speaking), and how their cognitive knowledge, personal backgrounds, cultural experiences, beliefs, ideologies, and attitudes shape the negotiation of meaning, power dynamics, and identities. By emphasizing the significance of spatial dynamics, this research contributes to unwriting fixed hierarchies of language and knowledge while shedding light on innovative approaches to rethinking classroom spaces and educational practices, ultimately advocating for equitable and inclusive educational opportunities for all.

Paper Short Abstract:

The paper discusses collaborative research with migrant children using engagement with literature, as a generative research design for unmoderated, unmediated ethnography and description of children’s lives.

Paper Abstract:

Migrant children are emerging as separate, fully-fledged subjects in anthropological research on migration, recently re-dubbed as ‘children on the move’ (Rosen 2023). The shift towards the dynamic, processual phenomenon of ‘being on the move’ and away from a more static ‘migrant’, has also facilitated whole new sets of questions researchers are asking, with the resulting fertile problematization of age, agency and children’s rights, through research on e.g. ‘emergent solidarities’ (ibid). Still, it can be argued that the questions we tend to focus on as researchers working with children are in dire need of un-writing – as are narratives about people we commonly see as children. Given the bias that may leads us to enact our authority as adult-moderators, I propose a research design that may generate unmediated linguistic, discursive, and reflexive ethnographic material – and a whole new set of emerging questions about children’s lives. Inspired by the approach by Carolyn Steedman in The Tidy House (1982) and Wendy Ewald in Secret Games: Collaborative Works with Children 1969-1999 (2000), I listen in, record and follow children’s conversations and creative linguistic re-fashioning of a poem (by the Ukrainian-Czech poet Marie Iljašenko) by children with migration background now living in Poland. The poem is provided in three language versions – the original Czech, and its Polish and English translation by professional poet-translators, with the possibility of further fractalization of the text through spontaneous acts of (oral or witten) translation by children into their (m)other tongues.

Keywords: children, migration, literature, research design, representation

Paper Short Abstract:

The presentation will examine the concept of a child-authored canon within the broader framework of evolving ethnographic research methodologies, centring on the active participation of children as co-authors of knowledge. Drawing on research conducted through surveys of primary and high school students in Białystok, the paper will examine children’s perceptions of child-authored literature, their understanding of narrative authority, their attitudes toward creating a child-authored literary canon, and their awareness of epistemic (in)justice. The paper will also introduce the theoretical framework of harpocratology to address these questions inspired by Nancy K. Miller’s feminist arachnology and critique of Barthes’ hypnology. Harpocratology emphasises the overreading of child-authored texts to uncover self-referential reflections on leadership, agency, and epistemic (in)justice. It advocates reimagining the literary canon to include child-authored texts as culturally and historically significant contributions.

Paper Abstract:

The presentation will examine the concept of a child-authored canon within the broader framework of evolving ethnographic research methodologies, centring on the active participation of children as co-authors of knowledge. Drawing on research conducted through surveys of primary and high school students in Białystok, the paper will examine children’s perceptions of child-authored literature, their understanding of narrative authority, their attitudes toward creating a child-authored literary canon, and their awareness of epistemic (in)justice. Survey findings reveal nuanced insights into how children engage with texts they generate, whether they desire recognition of these texts as part of a broader literary tradition, and the barriers they perceive to their inclusion.

By highlighting how children perceive and value their stories the paper addresses fundamental questions: Do children view their stories as deserving a place in the canon, and what factors shape this desire? What constitutes a child-authored canon, and how does it differ from adult interpretations of children's narratives? How do child-authored texts challenge traditional notions of literary canonicity? What methodological innovations are needed to confront the historical and cultural exclusion of child-generated narratives?

The paper will also introduce the theoretical framework of harpocratology to address these questions, inspired by Nancy K. Miller’s feminist arachnology and critique of Barthes’ hypnology. Harpocratology emphasises the overreading of child-authored texts to uncover self-referential reflections on leadership, agency, and epistemic (in)justice. It advocates reimagining the literary canon to include child-authored texts as culturally and historically significant contributions.

Paper Short Abstract:

In summer 2024, we conducted a three-week ethnographic project with children aged 10-11, focusing on their pandemic memories. Using books and stories, we aimed to highlight children's everyday experiences. This paper reflects on our methodology, emphasizing the dynamic, relational, and open-ended nature of our research process, which we interpret using post-humanist and relational approach.

Paper Abstract:

In the summer of 2024, we conducted a three-week ethnographic project with children aged 10-11 on their memories of pandemic. Our goal was to highlight children's everyday experiences beyond general narratives about the crisis, using books and stories as our starting point.

This paper reflects on the research methodology used in the project. We discuss both the possibilities and limitations of research where books and stories were among many actors, and the research plan evolved gradually. We aimed to create an intergenerational space for exchanging experiences, thoughts, and actions, exemplifying the pursuit of epistemic justice (Fricker 2007). We were interested in how children's literature—or rather its intellectual and affective agency—could function in a broader process of creating memories about the pandemic and understanding children's needs during a polycrisis.

We followed an approach that values producing meanings in unforeseen ways (Gallacher, Gallagher 2008) and without preconceptions about what a