Abstract
Whilst increasing numbers of children and young people are actively engaging in research, disabled children and young people’s voices remain marginalised. There are examples of disabled children’s active participation in research studies, but traditionally their roles have been that of passive recipients and objects of enquiry. Seeking out only voices that are easy to hear and easily translatable severely limits the soundscapes of childhood. The ethnography explored here adopts a reflexive approach, using active listening skills as opposed to passive hearing and giving children with disabilities a platform from which to project their voices. This illustrates how disabled children and young people can share their experiences of using augmentative and alternative forms of communication and acknowledges that they have much to say.
My apprenticeship into ethnography began as I started my PhD studies in 2008 whereupon I undertook research with disabled children and young people who had little or no speech. As I engaged with the young participants, my skills as an ethnographer developed and my sensorial acclimatisation to social practices began. By paying close attention, my ability to listen to voices that were different became much more acute. As an embodied knowledge of these young participants began to emerge, I started talking and writing about personal accounts of doing social research and sharing my stories of interactions with others.
This chapter continues with this practice and shares some aspects of my research journey, drawing on the sensory experiences of ethnographic practices of listening that I have encountered thus far.
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Boggis, A. (2018). Ethnographic Practices of Listening. In: Vine, T., Clark, J., Richards, S., Weir, D. (eds) Ethnographic Research and Analysis. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58555-4_5
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