Positioning, temporality, and emancipation in social research in projects for (or with?) forced migrants : some ethical implications.

In this proposal, we will reflect on some ethical implication of research involved in the co-construction of pilot experiences to support vulnerable persons – in particular asylum seekers and refugees – in their emancipating inclusion in the new countries of arrival. As researchers we have been members of research teams and partners in different EU projects; here we propose to draw on the experience of two European projects, which invested in building pilot experiences to support the inclusion of asylum seekers and refugees at several levels. Both the two projects are still ongoing, and in their final temporal phase. When being part of a projecting process as researchers we deal with our ethical positioning: when constructing the proposal, when interacting with the different target groups, when giving back what has been experienced and analysed, when facing limits and constrains of potential successful pilots’ experiences. For this reason, in the design of multidisciplinary European research, a need to reflect upon and problematize several significant variables arises, and it involves both the resources, times, and vulnerabilities/criticalities of research, as well as the resources, times, and vulnerabilities/criticalities of the target subjects involved. Indeed, although these two planes should ideally align in terms of intentions and ethical considerations, sometimes they conflict. For instance, concerning the aspect of temporality, it is recognized that time represents a key issue in the experience of refugees. Simultaneously, it is acknowledged that time is a crucial factor for the success of the objectives that constitute the research project’s framework. Despite this, the timing of research projects is not always a guarantee for the formation of a new – and better – conception of the temporality of projects aimed at this target group. That being stated, we question how the research timeline is integrated with the migrants’ projects’ temporality and what ethical implications and questions arise from the convergence of these dimensions. Alongside the temporality notion, we also aim to reflect on how to foster the effective promotion of emancipatory change of migrants when research deals with the capitalization of project results. Overall, this contribution aims at investigating the deep interplay between the ethical principles of transformation, the social realities of refugees and migrants, and the actively involved subjectivities within the projects.