Expanding youth participatory action research: a Foucauldian take on youth identities

This paper explores the identity construction of multilingual and multidialectal middle school students in a semester-long youth participatory action research (YPAR) project. In particular, it moves beyond an emancipatory discourse that views youth identity development from a point of marginalization by drawing on Foucauldian notions of discourse, power, and the subject to examine the complex discursive formations that enable and constrain the continual remaking of the self. Emergent understandings show how, regardless of whether youth took up or resisted positioning as social change agents, they deftly and creatively maneuvered across networks of power/discourse to constitute themselves in ways that were useful, even if not in line with the goals of the project. Implications include the need to reframe identity work in youth participatory action research in an effort to understand the nuances and complexities that inform the constant construction and negotiation of the self in ever-shifting networks of power/discourse.