Det är kapitlet handlar om olika former av makt som skapas och reproduceras när vi bedriver samhällsvetenskaplig forskning. Avsikten är att inspirera till hur forskningen kan dekolonisera maktojämlikheter genom kunskapsproduktion. Vem har makten att formulera vad som är kunskap? Och hur kan en göra forskningen mera nära forskningsdeltagarna och samhället? Utgångspunkten för det här kapitlet är att utövandet av forskning alltid är en våldsam praktik. Med inspiration från aktionsforskningen, där deltagarnära forskningsmetoder står i centrum och kunskap görs i en samproduktion, kommer jag i kapitlet att undersöka hur det går att minska på det våldsamma i att forska. Med hjälp av postkolonial, dekolonial och feministisk forskning belyses några exempel från aktivistiskt etnografiskt arbete på hur ojämlika maktpositioner kan bemötas. Frågan om hur en kan bryta med traditionell forskning och ägandet av kunskap diskuteras genom att ta hjälp av en mångfald av berättelser - en epistemologisk pluralitet. Slutligen presenteras några reflektioner över hur det går att minska på maktobalansen mellan forskare och deltagare genom att se på det etiskt politiska forskningsarbetet som en process.

In this chapter, we as authors enter into a dialogue in an attempt to (re)visitcaring encounters in ethnographic research.1 The dialogue is built on our PhDresearch projects which we conducted with different groups of people withexperiences of migration and seeking asylum in two different migratory settings.Eda’s dissertation project seeks to explore the everyday and migratory experiences of Iranian queer migrants who apply for refugee status and wait for resettlement in Turkey.2 For this study, Eda conducted multisited ethnographic fieldworkCaring encounters in ethnographic research 129that spread between the period December 2011 and February 2014, followed bysome informal/unstructured, sporadic, online research interactions. Djampour’sPhD research, Borders Crossing Bodies: The stories of eight youth with experience ofmigrating (2018), retells the stories of borders through time, hope, love, dreamsand resistance in the lives of young people who have migrated to Sweden. Thestudy was conducted through ethnographic fieldwork between 2013 and 2015 inthree cities in Sweden together with young participants who were in their earlyadulthood.

In qualitative research, the research process is often filled with moments of discomfort. These discomforts can appear at any stage of the research: when choosing thesubject of research, during fieldwork, in the process of analysis and when presenting research findings to different audiences. In this edited volume, we take thesemoments of discomfort seriously and use them as sites of knowledge production forreflecting on the politics and ethics of the qualitative research process. By locatingour experiences in implementing nine different PhD projects carried out in different disciplines and research contexts in social sciences, we argue that these momentsof discomfort help us to gain important insights into the methodological, theoretical, ethical and political issues that are crucial for the fields we engage with. Drawingon feminist and other critical discussions (Mulinari and Sandell 1999, Gunaratnam2003, Back 2007, Gunaratnam and Hamilton 2017), we deal with questions such as:What does it mean to write about the lives of others? What are the ethical modesand conundrums of producing representations? In research projects that are locatedin the tradition of critical or engaged scholarship, how are ethics and politics of representation intertwined, and when are they distinct? How are politics of representation linked to the practice of solidarity in research? What are the im/possibilities ofhope and care in research?

This book offers insights on politics and ethics of representation that are relevant to researchers concerned with struggles for justice. It takes moments of discomfort in the qualitative research process as important sites of knowledge for exploring representational practices in critical research.

The Politics and Ethics of Representation in Qualitative Research draws on experiences from research processes in nine PhD projects. In some chapters, ethical and political dilemmas related to representational practices are analyzed as experienced in fieldwork. In others, the focus is on the production of representation at the stage of writing. The book deals with questions such as: What does it mean to write about the lives of others? How are ethics and politics of representation intertwined, and how are they distinct? How are politics of representation linked to a practice of solidarity in research? What are the im/possibilities of hope and care in research?

Drawing on grounded empirical research, the book offers input to students, PhDs, researchers, practitioners, activists and others dealing with methodological dilemmas from a critical perspective. Instead of ignoring discomforts, or describing them as solved, we stay with them, showing how such a reflective process provides new, ongoing insights.

In public discourse on migration, people who migrate are often portrayed as deviating from the rest of the population. This is especially true for the group categorised as ‘unaccompanied’ children who are portrayed as homogeneous and not seldom with a common history. Such simplifications create a ‘single story’ that reduces people who migrate and their complex lives to stereotypes. This dissertation derives from a willingness to contest this single story through multiple stories by multiplestorytellers. This is done by seeking tocomprehend what borders do in the lives of eight youth with experience of migrating. The aim is thus to study what borders do and how the participants navigate, experience and challenge those borders at different stages of their lives.

This study is based on ethnography among eight youth, who at some point have been categorised as ‘unaccompanied’ children in Sweden and other countries. The fieldwork was carried out during a period between 2013 and 2017 involving interviews and conversations with the participants. Borders are analysed from a multiperspectival standpoint, which means that borders are seen as practices of both material and symbolic divisions performed by different actors constituting control. Borders not only hinder or stop some while granting passage to others; they also construct people differently. Those who are repeatedly crossed by borders eventually become inhabitants of the borderlands. Influenced by feminist and postcolonial scholarship, this study calls for epistemic plurality by acknowledging different sources of knowledge which are placed in dialogue with the stories of the youth. Aspects of their lives before moving from their homes are considered equally important for their experience of borders as their lives in Europe.