Youth participation with a purpose? Promoting the transformative power of remote critical action-reflection research with Brazilian youth in conditions of resource insecurity.

The chapter reflects on the transformative potential of youth participation ‘with purpose’ based on our experiences of engaging young people aged 12 to 18 from the urban periphery of Sao Paulo in critical reflection on their everyday living conditions in situations of marginalization. Using a (remote) reflection-action design based on the participatory learning approaches developed by Paulo Freire, we invited young people to reflect on experiences with resource scarcity, unsustainable urban development and disaster risk. Participants were invited to question conceptualizations of their own identities and develop visions for change. We argue that when children and young people start perceiving themselves as subjects in the construction of their identity and their reality, this can help them take better decisions to create more sustainable, healthy, and equal environments. Despite facing several limitations during the digital interaction with young people in situations of vulnerability, participants felt that they were able to develop new perspectives and the capacity to critically question their reality. To make youth participation ‘purposeful’, we advocate for exploring new and more inclusive and dialogical forms of research and knowledge co-production which take youth perspectives seriously and promote more symmetrical relations between researchers and participants.