(Re)Search 2017-2021
(Re)Search is a participatory, peer-led project that seeks to awaken awe and wonder, encouraging people to investigate the world and ourselves in dialogue. Its objective is to help young researchers to expand our knowledge about the human being and the reality we live in, through encounters that generate spaces for self-reflection and questioning. In (Re)Search, transformative experiences can take place through the implementation of methodologies and the posing of questions that set, at the heart of the path of knowledge, the relevance of creating and understanding relationships. These experiences are grounded on Anthroposophy, which helps expand traditional approaches and disciplines of research. As such, spiritual science is embedded throughout the project. Because the way in which human beings analyse and interpret information has an impact on how we live, (Re)Search also looks for ethical approaches to investigating world phenomena and the researcher who observes them.
Research objectives
(Re)Search has two primary branches of investigation. The first focuses on learning about and understanding young people’s reality. By opening up spaces of dialogue between peers and individual self-reflection, we listen to what youth have to say about their life experiences, the world they live in and the relationship between the two aspects.
The second branch concentrates on the observation and development of research methodologies that enable an empowering process for participants to happen. By “empowerment” we mean the process of engaging critically with one’s own life narrative. As a result, the participant can gain a new degree of self-awareness, e.g. identifying patterns, the significance of certain biographical facts, the recognition of one’s tools in the face of certain challenges, key motivations that presently guide them, etc. An increase in one’s sense of agency may then also take place.
Because (Re)Search is a peer-led social study, it means that the investigators’ experiences are also considered. How we choose to collect, analyse and narrate data is also a statement on being young. The way in which we develop methodologies of empowerment is also an example of young people’s initiative in action and what we seek to bring to the fields of social research and spiritual science.
Last but not least, the project metamorphoses according to the way in which it is received by third parties and the reality of the times in which it lives. That is to say, when individuals or organisations give feedback, ask questions or make requests, these are absorbed by the project as fuel for its development; when a movement like Fridays for Future, or a crisis such as the COVID-19 arises in the world –with all its implications– the team takes it as an opportunity to deepen the two branches of study.
The Spiritual Striving of Youth - Shaping our Reality
The Spiritual Striving of Youth - Shaping Our Reality is the title of our first (Re)Search publication. It is a journey to the heart of young people's visions of our world.
Between 2017 and 2021, the Youth Section at the Goetheanum collected through peer interviews, focus groups and creative workshops the testimonies and opinions of hundreds of young people aged 16-35 from around the world. We listened to each individual experience in order to better understand what young people were committed to at the time of their participation, what challenged and inspired them to take action in life, and their longings and aspirations for the future. The insights were been published in an open, free report and in articles, as well as in presentations around the world.