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In institutional ethical and deontological guidelines, there is a prevailing, static understanding of the research partnership, with a clear boundary between researcher and participant. In this article, we argue that such a static understanding may run the risk of impeding the development of an enhanced contextual and dynamic intersubjective understanding of the research partnership and its impact on the growing importance of role boundaries in qualitative research. Drawing from a refugee health study on trauma and forced migration, we explore the different ways in which participants and the researcher engaged with the researcher’s multiple positions and role boundaries. In doing so, we aim to contribute to a reflective research practice by providing tools to recognize signs of potential harm and offer potential vehicles of reconstruction and agency within the intersubjective space of a dynamic research relationship, within a continuous, shared renegotiation process of role boundaries.

Objective: An increasing body of literature emphasizes the role of refugees' social context, with social conditions both at home and in the host society having an impact on the possibility of power redistribution and the mobilization of agency in collaborative research practices. Our aim is to develop a contextualized understanding of research participation for refugees in collaborative research in order to further enhance insights on the potential strengths and pitfalls of collaborative refugee research. Method: We closely study the various relational contexts that shape refugees' research participation and that may have an influence on power dynamics in collaborative research. In the present study, we explore participants' adaptation of research participation by means of an interpretive cross-case analysis of three psychosocial intervention studies sharing a collaborative approach with refugee participants, refugee families, refugee communities, and professional partners at different stages in the research process. Results: We identify the developed collaborative strategies in our three case studies and provide an outline of the ways refugees mobilize research participation through these identified collaborative strategies, from within the relational contexts of the family, community, and institutional actors. Conclusions: This analysis shows how research participation operates as a relational forum in which refugees continuously navigate and negotiate within and between multiple relational contexts. We argue that performing research participation, as a way of relating to a relational context, is both an interactive and a dynamic process. For research practice, our analysis addresses the importance of an in-depth understanding of participants' relational contexts to foster both a reflective research practice and trustful research relationships between researchers and participants. Public Significance StatementResearch participation in collaborative refugee research operates as a relational forum in which refugees navigate within and relate to different relational contexts of the family, the community, and institutional actors. A contextualized understanding of research participation for refugees in collaborative research can enhance insights on the potential strengths and pitfalls of collaborative refugee research to redistribute power and mobilize agency in collaborative research practices.

Her main field of study is performing arts, dance, and new media at the crossroads of Gilles Deleuze's aesthetics of intensities and Luce Irigaray's corporeal philosophy. She edited Deleuze Revisited: