Abstract
In my paper/presentation I will discuss my multidisciplinary research project A Finn, a Foreigner or a Transnational Hip-hopper? Participatory Art-Based Research on the Identification Negotiations and Belonging of the Second Generation Finnish Immigrant Youth. My main research objective is to offer new knowledge about the localisation processes of second generation immigrants by making the participants’ voices heard and their perspectives visible. Also, my intention is to develop cross-disciplinary approaches and methods. I have been working with several teams and groups of youth. However, in this article I concentrate on the work done with a group of young second generation Somali men and two young Somali women. I started to work with the young men during autumn 2009 in the “Youths Multicultural Living Room” run by the Youth Department of the City of Helsinki. Based on the material created mainly by young men we produced a video and photo exhibition, a radio program and a book. During March till September 2013 visual and audiovisual material produced by the group of young men and one young woman will be presented in the exhibition at the Institute of Migration, Turku, Finland. In my presentation I will show some of the work exhibited in 2013 and discuss the themes emerging from the material. Those themes are, for example, nationality, racism and prejudices, transnational relations, diaspora, questions of identifications and nature. It seems that a central issue that emerges from the material is ambivalence. I claim that participatory practices and art-based approaches help youth to make this ambivalence visible, talk about their experiences and share their knowledge that can be otherwise difficult to reach. By creating productions the results can be distributed to the larger society, not only to the academic community. Youth likes to take part in and give their perspectives to the inquiries that concern themselves. Researchers, educators and artists can give them tools to do that.
Keywords
art based research; performativity; visual approaches; participatory multidisciplinary projects; youth work with second generation immigrants
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/eksig2013.112
Citation
Oikarinen-Jabai, H.(2013) Participatory Art Based Research as a Tool to Restructure Notions of Participating Second Generation Immigrant Youth, in Nimkulrat, N., Niedderer, K., Evans, M. (eds.), EKSIG 2013: Knowing Inside Out – Experiential Knowledge, Expertise and Connoisseurship, 4–5 July 2013, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/eksig2013.112
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Participatory Art Based Research as a Tool to Restructure Notions of Participating Second Generation Immigrant Youth
In my paper/presentation I will discuss my multidisciplinary research project A Finn, a Foreigner or a Transnational Hip-hopper? Participatory Art-Based Research on the Identification Negotiations and Belonging of the Second Generation Finnish Immigrant Youth. My main research objective is to offer new knowledge about the localisation processes of second generation immigrants by making the participants’ voices heard and their perspectives visible. Also, my intention is to develop cross-disciplinary approaches and methods. I have been working with several teams and groups of youth. However, in this article I concentrate on the work done with a group of young second generation Somali men and two young Somali women. I started to work with the young men during autumn 2009 in the “Youths Multicultural Living Room” run by the Youth Department of the City of Helsinki. Based on the material created mainly by young men we produced a video and photo exhibition, a radio program and a book. During March till September 2013 visual and audiovisual material produced by the group of young men and one young woman will be presented in the exhibition at the Institute of Migration, Turku, Finland. In my presentation I will show some of the work exhibited in 2013 and discuss the themes emerging from the material. Those themes are, for example, nationality, racism and prejudices, transnational relations, diaspora, questions of identifications and nature. It seems that a central issue that emerges from the material is ambivalence. I claim that participatory practices and art-based approaches help youth to make this ambivalence visible, talk about their experiences and share their knowledge that can be otherwise difficult to reach. By creating productions the results can be distributed to the larger society, not only to the academic community. Youth likes to take part in and give their perspectives to the inquiries that concern themselves. Researchers, educators and artists can give them tools to do that.