Making With Place team members critically explore what it means to consider one’s artistic practice as research, and the tensions that emerge between using research as a tool of resistance and its colonial legacy.

The MWP artist-researchers reflect on marginality, identity and place as integral sources of knowledge and knowing, and the creative necessity of place-making and community for disrupting dominant narratives and knowledge production.

PAR seeks to resist and disrupt power dynamics of traditional research, in particular the emphasis on “objective” researchers distantly observing a phenomenon. Instead PAR seeks to reposition research opportunities, voice and leadership into the hands of those who have lived experience with the key issues and questions. Rooted in goals of empowerment and emancipation, PAR re-frames and re-claims research as a form of activism and social action.

Youth-PAR (YPAR) is specifically focused on partnership and power sharing with young people. YPAR seeks to honour and uncover young people’s wisdom, experiences, and theory-building, especially from perspectives that have been traditionally hidden, silenced or marginalized.

The WhyPAR Podcast 

The WhyPAR podcast series is an initiative of the Youth Research Lab at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

The WhyPAR podcast series places YPAR practitioners in conversation with each other, to explore the opportunities, complexities, and ethics of research with diverse youth communities.

The podcast series explores issues of co-leading YPAR projects, building relationships, power dynamics, and sharing our work together, as we push against structures, and reach towards new futures.

For more WhyPAR podcast episodes see https://youthresearchlab.org/whypar