Photo-talk and music-talk among young people (formerly) in care

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the use of photo-elicitation and the sharing of a piece of music as a point of departure for second wave longitudinal interviews with young people aged 17–30 years. More specifically, such an approach was used to support the young people in gaining control and planning what they share in research. I argue that photo-talk and music-talk brought forward a dialogue whereby the participants acted as co-researchers, but in two different ways: (1) photo-elicitation empowered the participants to represent what was important in their everyday lives, whereas (2) playing music together created a sensory space—a zoning of the interview—that facilitated the sharing of difficult emotions and unlived lives related to past events. I conclude that through a combination of music-talk and photo-talk, the participants told two very different stories about growing up in care, but still from their own perspectives, as through these mediums they choose what to include or exclude in their life stories.