Claire Levy presents interactive documentary ‘Teen Diaries’ at the BSA Conference 2025 in Manchester.
I attended the British Sociological Association conference in April, which took place in Manchester, made possible by funding from CCCI. I presented my interactive documentary, Teen Diaries, which was the output of my PhD which I did at Goldsmiths, University of London.
The conference offers an eclectic mix from the world of sociology, from papers on #Sobercurious communities on TikTok to an ethnodrama, written and performed by trans and intersex people on gender recognition, and a panel discussion on whether sociologists are making an impact on climate justice.
I shared Teen Diaries to an enthusiastic audience of mostly youth studies scholars. I talked about the value of failure to the research process and how the interactive interface of my i-doc has helped to unpack what can often be compressed narratives about research and informed the knowledge which was produced through the collaborative process of its creation.
Teen Diaries was made over a 6-year period while I was researching the experiences of teenagers living in the Stroud District in Gloucestershire. The project, which employed participatory multi-media methods, explored how the landscape contributes to young people’s developing independence.
Through the methods which included walking, map-making and podcasting, I asked the participants to share their audio-visual responses to familiar places near where they were living and discuss what those social spaces meant to them.
Through the project I addressed questions about rural teen experience and presented ways in which young people are inventive and how the landscape, categorised as ‘dodgy’ or safe, is part of the way they grow up. This intervention was designed to shift focus from rural research, which more commonly explores the transitional axis of the rural home to work/university in the city.
Instead, the project focused on experiences of younger teenagers who are starting to develop their sense of self in relation to place as they embark on walks alone and with friends away from home, work or school. Through the collaborative methods and the interactive output, I was able to explore what the social and material aspects of place mean to young people.
Claire Levy is a senior lecturer in Film at Bath Spa University and a film-maker interested in youth research and participatory methods.