Master Thesis : Holding Spaces for Artistic Expression - Participatory Art-Based Research with Mobile Youth in the Asylum Apparatus.

Abstract

Research with adolescents living within the asylum apparatus raises important epistemological and ethical questions concerning whose forms of expression are recognised as legitimate and how knowledge about lived experiences is produced. In response to these concerns, art-based and participatory methodologies have gained attention for their potential to engage with experience beyond verbal articulation, foregrounding relational, sensory, and embodied modes of meaning-making. This thesis examines the ways in which participatory art-based projects can create spaces in which mobile youth express and make sense of their lived experiences. Participatory art projects are approached as situated and relational practices whose effects must be examined empirically rather than assumed in advance. Attention is given to diverse forms of engagement, including silence, selective participation, refusal, and presence, which extend beyond artistic outputs or coherent narratives. Empirically, the study draws on participatory art-based ateliers conducted with unaccompanied adolescents living in an asylum reception center in Belgium. The findings highlight both the possibilities and limits of participatory art-based research in institutional contexts and contribute to debates on art-based methodology, child-centered research, and ethical approaches to knowledge production in contexts of mobility.