Researching resilience: lessons learned from working with rural, Sesotho-speaking South African young people

Theories of youth resilience neglect youths'lived experiences of what facilitates positive adjustment to hardship. The Pathways-to-Resilience Study addressed this by inviting Canadian, Chinese, Colombian, New Zealand and South African ( SA) youths to share their resiliencerelated knowledge. In this article I report the challenges endemic to the rural, resource-poor, South African research site that complicated this Pathways ideal. I illustrate that blind application of a multi-country study design, albeit well-designed, potentially excludes youths with inaccessible parents, high mobility, and/ or cellular telephone contact details. Additionally, I show that oneon-one interview methods do not serve Sesotho-speaking youths well, and that the inclusion of adult ` insiders'in a research team does not guarantee regard for local youths'insights. I comment critically on how these challenges were addressed and use this to propose seven lessons that are likely to inform, and support, youth-advantaging qualitative research in similar majority-world contexts.