The Microphysics of Participation in Refugee Research

This paper examines the involvement of refugees in the production and
reproduction of knowledge of which they are ultimately meant to be
beneficiaries. By using examples from research with Central American refugees
and Rwandan displaced children, it considers forced migrants’ roles as
participants in research, their position in ‘participatory’ research, and the
representation of refugees’ voices in refugee-centred research. Power is
intimately connected to the diverse ways in which participation unfolds, and
the last part of the paper examines refugees’ participation in research in terms
of ‘power that circulates’ (Foucault) to show that they are not more or less
powerful but vehicles for the circulation of power, simultaneously undergoing
and exercising it.