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The chapters in this book show that it is possible to conduct studies on the intersections between gender, criminalization, imprisonment, and human rights in Southeast Asia. In this conclusion, we draw out the implications of this emerging scholarship. More specifically, we critically examine how common talk about “individual needs” risks blinding criminal justice reformers to the structural, gendered dynamics that render people criminalizable and imprisonable. We explore the potential of the concept of participation to strengthen understandings and activism around gendered harms, and grapple with the thorny issue of for whom we speak. We advocate for cross-cultural understandings, developed in collaboration and through partnership, to productively challenge the ethnocentrism of criminology and propel truly transformative agendas. Three steps are identified to decenter research and activism: Scholars and activists must acknowledge the risks of attending to need while not attending to the drivers of need; resist the temptation to operate only within the limits defined by the authorities, the state, the academy, or agencies set up to protect; and generate “home grown,” counter-hegemonic solutions that push back against the tendency to universalize, colonize and deny difference.

The aim of this study is two-fold: (1) to promote a model of youth participatory research and offer a window of understanding into how it can be enacted and (2) to understand youth perspectives on youth empowerment. This study asks: “how can youth help us understand youth empowerment?”

The study applies youth participatory action research (YPAR) and interpretative phenomenological analysis. The study illustrates how to enact a model of YPAR by engaging youth in the process of research in a youth-serving community non-profit organization.

This study sets out to make two important contributions, one methodological and one theoretical: First, the study contributes to our understanding of the opportunities and benefits of youth-engaged, peer-to-peer research. Specifically, this study promotes a model of youth participatory action research and knowledge making processes, and the associated social and formal benefits for youth. By extension, this study illustrates an approach to engage youth in formal contexts which has implications for both management and organizational studies and education. Finally, the study extends our understanding and conceptualization of the phenomenon of youth empowerment (as informed by youth perspectives).

The study offers insight into how to conduct youth participatory action research and specifically how to address two limitations cited in the literature: (1) how to authentically engage youth including how to share power, and (2) how to perform youth participatory action research, often critiqued as a black box methodology.