“From Where I Sit”

Abstract

Studies of young people's experiences of sexuality rarely discuss how immigration and settlement impact youths' understanding of their bodies, sexual identities, and knowledge. In this paper, Filipino youth in collaboration with adult allies, conducted a New York City-based participatory action research project and found that young people's experiences and understanding of sexuality are narrated by silences, solidarity and paradoxical spaces. This study explores the contradictory experiences of passivity and subjectivity in the sexual lives of young people. Lastly, as an adult collaborator on the project I assess how “participation” as a logic of inquiry allows for youth and adult collaborators to talk through and negotiate their positions in a research project.