Trouble on Memory Lane: Adults and Self-Retrospection in Researching Youth

Abstract

Ethnographers of youth often invoke adolescent memories in relation to their informants. This article examines memory as a concern for ethnographers who study young people. It suggests that this rhetorical strategy heightens the narrator’s authority and authenticates the author’s speaking position, pulling the center of the story from the youthful informants toward the adult researcher. At the same time, this strategy ignores power relations between adults and youth. The article explores multiple representations of memory, the social construction of youth, and these effects in an example of research. The article argues that memory is not a form of bias but a problematic that must be addressed to provide adequate attention to the youthful informant’s legitimacy and authority as an interpreter of experience.