Abstract
This chapter aims to discuss the methodological implications of research with children and adolescents who are living in foster care, with emphasis on the use of visual methods and reflexive interviews. We begin the chapter by establishing the policy context for children and youth in Brazil. To do this, we review child protection policies, highlighting the advances made and the State’s responsibility in promoting actions that ensure the rights of these sectors of the population. Then, we discuss elements of foster care and the institutions that offer care to children and adolescents whose family and community ties are so fragile that they are under the responsibility of the State. Working from this reality, we discuss the conceptual aspects of visual methods and reflexive interviews. The central argument is that such methods dialogue more accurately with the subjective interests of children and consequently elicit more accurate expressions of how young people they themselves understand and interpret their life contexts. The process engaged in through the use of visual methods and reflexive interviewing together with the resulting data is profitable for investigations with children with a history of violation of rights. To illustrate our argument, an example study is presented, aimed at elucidating the challenges and potential of these combined qualitative strategies. It is hoped that the discussions presented in this manuscript will reverberate in the development of new research designs that are relevant to the production of knowledge about children living in foster care.