Moments of Joy and Moments of Discomfort: Enhancing Young People’s Epistemic Justice and Researchers’ Reflexivity Through Youth Citizen Social Science

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Citizen social science is an emerging research approach and launched by the European Commission as a priority in open science. With this follows new methodological and epistemological opportunities, and potential pitfalls. The article discusses the authors’ experience from Youth Citizen Social Science (YCSS) projects in Norway, where young people have been trained and involved as co-researchers in qualitative studies on social inclusion, urban development and public health; and explores how this, as a strive toward epistemic diversity, inspires reflexivity and introspection on behalf of the researchers. The article draws on the philosophical concept of epistemic injustice and argues that designing and applying citizen social science frameworks enhance epistemic justice for children and youth. The moments of joy and discomfort are important signposts for challenging acknowledged formats of research dissemination, and conventional methodologies in the data collection process, but also the larger scientific value system. The authors suggest the needed level of scientific reflexivity can be achieved through practices of epistemic disobedience, both towards science policy and science infrastructures.