In the context of a collaborative research with a group of young people of 11 to 17 years old from disinherited contexts in the city of Porto (Portugal), this paper proposes reflection and debate on how this group can build their citizen participation and political action in relation to their peers and their city.

The present research has been developed in a socially vulnerable area of the city, between a school and a constellation of surrounding social housing neighbourhoods, where these young people have participated as research partners and researchers of their own reality. The aim is to observe and understand what conditions these young people have for the construction of their social relations, expressions and actions, through the analysis of spaces of dialogue, interaction, and creative production.

Faced with a fragmented urban landscape, characterized by unstructured, socially disadvantaged and unequal spaces, which often instigate asymmetrical power relations and situations of social exclusion (Young, 2002; Queirós, 2019), young people come across constant social and educational challenges. (Macedo, 2009, 2018). These tensions are felt in the case of these young participants and similarly with other groups of young people in Europe (Antonucci, Hamilton, & Roberts, 2014).

In the context of today's European society, as a territory set of multiple contexts, dynamics and diversity, the urban space is full of symbolic meanings. The symbolic representations produced by the experience of certain city spaces may affect the identities, educational trajectories, social relations, and ways of acting of young people that may or not encourage their engagement and participation.

Stigma, obstacles to participation, “the persistence of high levels of social inequality and insidious processes of physical and symbolic segregation” (Queirós, 2019, p. 160) have challenged education and European governments to rethink paradigms and policies, to (re)connect socially undervalued communities.

Considering the important role that young people can play in the development of the communities they belong to, it is important to analyse how this group recognises, intervene and translate its social and educational reality into its various dimensions. This heterogeneous group of social and political actors with the right to citizen participation is often excluded from the processes of participation and decision-making. However, they are not only citizens of the future, but citizens of the present, competent to make critical reflections about their reality, take positions, and propose changes (Macedo, 2009, 2018; Menezes, 2014).

The conception of citizenship has raised several reflections and concerns, and for us it is relevant to emphasize the importance of inclusive and rights-claiming dimension of citizenship (Lister, 2002), simultaneously based on the “claim for recognition and social justice” (Macedo, 2018, p. 72) and in a polyphony, which comes from recognizing the diversity of voices and the many forms of manifestation of these voices (Araújo, 2007). Therefore, we consider that citizenship is in permanent (re)construction, in the sense of a more inclusive, intercultural, and plural ideal.

Concerning these reflections and constructions, this paper will present methodological possibilities for the development of critical and emancipatory dialogues for knowledge production (Freire, 2014). In this way, may be created contexts where rights may be claimed, namely, the right to the participation of younger people, creating forms of expression and action that embody new educational and social intervention experiences (Madeira, 2013). Thus, opportunities may arise for these young people to take advantage of various resources and participate equally (Gaitán and Liebel, 2011), in dialogue with diversity (Araújo, 2007), in the creation of spaces to produce transformative actions in their community (Freire, 1997). In this context, “many possible worlds” can be built (Santos, 2005, p. 15), with inclusion and social justice.

This paper will focus on visual methods, in particular photovoice, and on how they facilitated debates with young people, allowing us to understand better their reality and the ways they see it and act in it. This ongoing qualitative research project proposes the co-production of knowledge through participatory, action-oriented, and arts-based research, towards the co-construction of intersubjective and situated knowledge with a group of young people from marginalized city contexts. Based on a “ ‘practical activity’, or, in other words, the action on the world (…), which is the basis of the physical transformation of the world and, consequently, of how we think” (Amado, 2017, p. 53), the present research has focussed on the co-construction of a dynamic, transdisciplinary, and transformative process. This presumes permanent critical reflection and questioning of the collective about action and reality (Freire, 1997, 2001). Fifty research sessions were held with the youth group in their school and neighbourhoods over eight months. Interactive experiences of collective dialogue started from multiple images and photographs captured by the young participants which contributed to the production of research data. For carried out experiences using participatory visual research methods, resources as photo and video cameras were available to young participants. The practice of photovoice proved powerful in promoting reflections, dialogues, and citizenship spaces with expression and participation (Wang & Burris, 1997; Catalani & Minkler, 2010). Through photovoice young people were encouraged to research and question the reality surrounding them; to carefully observe the spaces and places of their community and to express them visually; to identify their perceptions and challenges, their individual and collective experiences in the city and reflect on them; and to create and compose images about their reality, building on sense impressions, thus generating debate. The use of images/photographs as induction of dialogues allowed the development of a listening process and the elicitation of multiple layers of results. There was an attempt to empowerment the participating group by promoting critical reflection, strengthen democratic participation, and the practice of collaborative dynamics (Coghlan & Brydon-Miller, 2014). In order to incorporate an aesthetic and a creative dimension in the processes of co-production of knowledge, the study made resource to photovoice assuming the active participation of the group involved, including them in the research while considering the diversity of their voices, points of view, and interpretations of reality (Mitchell et al., 2017; Mcintyre, 2003; Wang, 1999).

This paper intends to share some visual methods that have facilitated listening and dialogue processes with young people, in order to understand what conditions they find to participate in their community, and how these processes may enable their participation, reflection and analysis. There is the perspective that the creative and collective process of research, besides developing research skills among young people, critical awareness of reality and democratic practice, can generate a basis for strengthening citizenship and human and social development. Recognizing and valuing the multiplicity of voices and glances of these young people and their several forms of expression, the data has allowed us to observe the necessity of these young people to express themselves, to be seen, heard, and considered by society in the decision and proposal-making process about the subjects that relate to them. During this collaborative and participatory research process, key themes have emerged such as: the feeling of social injustice resulting from living in marginalized territories of the city and the provenance of economically disadvantaged families; prejudice associated with an unfavourable socio-economic situation, sexual diversity, and the idea of identity; gender inequality related to the experiences of young girls in the domestic, school and public space context; environmental justice with regard to the claim of green, organized, safe and unpolluted spaces. Simultaneously, during this co-production of knowledge, were suggested some proposals for change by these young participants, which will be presented. It is hoped that the data co-produced during this research, after rigorously analysed through thematic analysis, will be released, in order to contribute to the reflection and debate about the conditions and the challenges of youth participation in their communities and the importance of listening to them for the co-production of social and educational knowledge.

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