Rethinking Educational Participatory Action Research with Migrant and Racialized Youth in Border Contexts

Youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) has gained increasing relevance as an approach for promoting youth agency and addressing social inequalities in educational contexts. However, when implemented with migrant and racialized youth in border regions, participatory research faces specific ethical, political, and methodological challenges that may limit its transformative potential. This article offers a situated reflection on the possibilities and constraints of educational participatory action research developed with migrant and racialized young people in the Canary Islands, one of the main border territories of southern Europe. Drawing on 15 years of experience in participatory research, education, and community action, as well as practice-based insights from Emancipatory Communicative Action Laboratories involving migrant and racialized youth, the paper reflects on recurring tensions that arise in these processes. Five recurring challenges are discussed: functional interculturalism, academic extractivism, performative decoloniality, ethnocentric and adult-centred practices, and the effects of structural violence associated with border regimes. In response, the article proposes a critical anti-racist and dialogical framework grounded in reflexivity, recognition, shared knowledge production, and the creation of safe participatory spaces. Particular attention is given to methodological strategies that strengthen young people’s capacity to define their own experiences, analyse structural inequalities, and participate meaningfully in social transformation processes. The article contributes to ongoing debates on participatory methodologies by highlighting the need to rethink research practices from the perspectives of migration, racialization and border dynamics.