Building on the various encounters we had with Manfred Liebel over the last 20 years, in this chapter we explore how we have experienced the relations and possible tensions between research, teaching and activism in children's rights and childhood studies in our own research and teaching. Liebel has provided both a critique of as well as alternative approaches to children's rights and child labour norms and policy. His critical scholarship has not been limited to challenging fixed interpretative frames but has also explored alternative frameworks to reconstruct social realities, in particular in relation to children's work. Even if, as academics, we harbour reservations about combining research and activism, we can only praise Liebel for commending the epistemic strength of working children's organizations and stimulating our own imagination.