This study discusses some of the paradoxes found in the rhetoric of participatory research. Research-with-children views them as competent and agentic and as social actors, as citizens with opinions that must be listened to and given due weight. This image of the child as a social actor fails to acknowledge the structural, contextual and relational conditions that can afford or restrict opportunities for children’s agentic action. It conceals the multi-faceted, multi-dimensional properties of power that shape children’s (and adults’) contributions and ‘voices’. Our research took place in a primary school and aimed at training Year 6 children to carry out their own research on their chosen topic of interest. The participatory research ‘space’ was informed by the participants’ different intentionalities and agendas. The children were invited to take initiatives and make decisions, to be agentic. However, their agency, or what counts as ‘proper’ agency, was framed and defined in our adult terms. Tensions arose when the children’s agendas conflicted with and threatened ours. As we argue here, this participatory space should rather be seen as a political arena, where different and often competing agendas are at play, where the roles and relationships between children and adults are far from fixed, and where the capacity for agentic action is always socially mediated and shaped by social structure.

中文翻译：

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到底是谁的“声音”？参与式叙述的悖论

本研究讨论了在参与式研究的修辞中发现的一些悖论。Research-with-children 认为他们是有能力和能动性的，是社会行为者，是有意见的公民，必须听取并给予应有的重视。这种将儿童视为社会行为者的形象未能承认能够提供或限制儿童主动行动机会的结构、背景和关系条件。它隐藏了塑造儿童（和成人）贡献和“声音”的权力的多方面、多维属性。我们的研究在一所小学进行，旨在培训 6 年级的孩子对他们选择的感兴趣的主题进行自己的研究。参与式研究“空间”是由参与者的不同意图和议程决定的。孩子们被邀请采取主动并做出决定，成为代理人。然而，他们的代理机构，或所谓的“适当”代理机构，是用我们成人的术语来框定和定义的。当孩子们的议程与我们的议程发生冲突并威胁到我们的议程时，紧张局势就出现了。正如我们在此所论证的，这个参与性空间应该被视为一个政治舞台，在这里，不同且经常相互竞争的议程在发挥作用，儿童和成人之间的角色和关系远非固定，并且代理行动的能力始终如一由社会结构介导和塑造。