Project
Becomings
engage · learn · reimagine · grow
Reimagining recovery narratives following adversity
Power, Boundaries And Responsibility
Exploring how shared lived experience could change the research relationship without removing differences in power and responsibility.
Shared Experience Did Not Make Us Equal
Sharing lived experience could change the relationship between me and the co-researchers. It could reduce some of the distance often associated with the researcher role and create possibilities for recognition, trust and more open conversations.
But shared experience did not place us in the same position.
I was still responsible for conducting a doctoral research project. I had responsibilities connected with the university, research ethics and safeguarding, and I would ultimately make decisions about how the research was interpreted, written about and represented.
Co-researchers also brought experiences, knowledge and perspectives that I did not possess. Being a survivor myself did not give me greater authority over those experiences or allow me to assume that I understood them.
This meant that power within the research relationship was more complicated than simply asking who had more of it. Different people could hold different forms of power, knowledge and responsibility at different moments.
Participatory approaches created opportunities to share some decisions and challenge traditional researcher–participant relationships. But calling the project participatory did not make unequal responsibilities or institutional power disappear.
For me, the important task was therefore not to claim that power had been removed, but to remain attentive to where it was operating, what it allowed me to do, and what responsibilities followed from the position I occupied.
Who Gets To Make The Decisions?
Project Becomings was designed to involve co-researchers in shaping the research rather than simply taking part in activities that had already been decided for them.
Co-researchers could influence what was explored, contribute ideas, question emerging understandings and shape aspects of how the research developed. Their knowledge and experiences therefore had a genuine role in changing the direction of the research.
But not every decision could be shared equally.
As the doctoral researcher, I remained responsible for particular decisions about the study. I worked within university requirements, research ethics and safeguarding responsibilities, and ultimately held responsibility for producing and submitting the thesis.
Being clear about these limits mattered. Describing research as participatory can create the impression that everyone involved holds the same decision-making power, even when some decisions remain with the researcher or institution.
Rather than claiming that Project Becomings removed these differences, I needed to ask where decisions could genuinely be shared, where they could not, and why.
This also meant recognising that participation was not simply about giving people choices. A choice only meaningfully shifts power when there is a real possibility that what someone says or decides can change what happens next.
For me, participatory research therefore required both a willingness to share power and honesty about the places where I continued to hold it.
Boundaries Could Protect As Well As Limit
Participatory research often involves trying to reduce some of the traditional boundaries between researcher and participant. Within Project Becomings, sharing lived experience, working creatively together and developing relationships could make those boundaries feel less fixed.
But I also came to recognise that not every boundary needed to disappear.
Some boundaries protected co-researchers. Others helped me manage my own privacy and wellbeing. There were also boundaries connected with safeguarding, confidentiality, research ethics and my responsibilities as the researcher that I could not
simply set aside in the name of participation.
This meant that a boundary could do different things in different situations. It might limit someone's involvement or reinforce a difference in power, but it could also provide clarity, protect privacy or make a relationship feel safer.
The important question was therefore not simply whether a boundary existed, but what that boundary was doing, who it was protecting and who had the power to decide where it was placed.
This also required honesty. Relationships developed through the research could be warm, personal and meaningful, but they still existed within a research project. Pretending that those relationships had no limits would not necessarily have made them more equal or more caring.
For me, working ethically therefore involved trying to hold both things together: challenging boundaries that unnecessarily maintained distance or power, while recognising when boundaries provided care, clarity or protection.
Responsibility Could Not Be Shared Away
Project Becomings aimed to involve co-researchers meaningfully in shaping the research. But sharing decisions and challenging traditional research roles did not mean that every responsibility could — or should — be shared.
There were responsibilities that remained mine because I was the researcher. I was accountable for working within ethical and safeguarding requirements, protecting confidentiality, making decisions when concerns arose, and considering how people's experiences would eventually be written about and represented.
This mattered because asking co-researchers to take greater ownership of a project should not also mean asking them to carry responsibilities or risks that belonged to me.
At times, this created tension. I wanted the research to remain open to being changed by the people involved, while also recognising that there were moments when I had to make decisions because of the role I occupied.
Rather than seeing this as a failure of participatory research, I came to understand responsibility as part of working with power carefully. Sharing power did not require pretending that everyone held the same role. It required being clear about what could genuinely be shared, what remained my responsibility, and why.
This also meant being accountable for what happened after participation. Co-researchers had trusted me with experiences, ideas and creative work. My responsibility did not end when a workshop or conversation finished.
It continued into how those contributions were interpreted, represented and carried beyond the immediate research encounter.
Participatory research could redistribute some forms of power, but I could not participate my way out of being responsible for how I used the power that remained with me.
Holding Position, Power And Responsibility Together
Being a researcher-survivor did not remove the differences between me and the co-researchers, nor did participatory research make questions of power disappear.
Instead, Project Becomings required me to continually balance and attend to where I was positioned, what power I held, what could genuinely be shared and what remained my responsibility.
Lived experience could create connection. Disclosure could make something of myself visible. Participation could open decisions to others. Boundaries could be questioned and changed. But none of these practices provided a simple solution to the complexities of researching alongside people whose experiences were both connected to and different from my own.
What became important was remaining open to those tensions rather than trying to resolve them — recognising that care, connection, power, vulnerability and responsibility could exist alongside one another within the same research relationship.
