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?