Research and the Challenge of Participation—The Experience of the Research Project “Distressed Neighborhoods through the Prism of Youth” (ANR Pop-Part)

Abstract

Based on a participatory research project on the practices and representations of young people in distressed neighborhoods, this article examines the contributions and limitations of a participatory approach in terms of scientific production. How does participation affect social science research? How does it challenge methodological and epistemological principles, knowledge building, and the nature of that knowledge? To what extent is it heuristically stimulating from this point of view?