Rights-Based Narrative Research: Empowerment of Children and Young People Experiencing Impacts of Trauma

The year 2019 celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This milestone gives researchers cause to reflect on what has been learned about facilitating children’s empowerment and agency in the context of research. We might consider how such learnings have been applied and what remains to be achieved. That context gives rise to this chapter, which presents the author’s ongoing interest in collaborative approaches to rights-based narrative research with children and young people. It is proposed here that the cornerstones of a rights-based framework for children’s research comprise inclusion, participation, empowerment and advocacy. These four elements are complementary to the co-creation of narratives drawing on constructivist linguistic concepts. Together, those perspectives offer a framework for critically examining opportunities and challenges encountered in developing rights-based narrative research with children and young people with trauma experience. Core to that framework are issues of ideology, ethics, recruitment, agency, maturation and change, culture and language, gender and dissemination. A single Australian case study which formed part of cross-national research in child and family welfare is utilized to illustrate these issues. Based on this critique and the author’s broader narrative research experience, a set of principles to guide the conduct of rights-based narrative research with children and young people is suggested.