Addressing issues of (linguistic) vulnerability in researching UK asylum-related advice contexts: reflections on practice

Abstract

In this paper, we reflect on efforts to address (linguistic) vulnerability in two separate UK-based research projects examining communicative practices in immigration advice-giving. The first project investigated communication in legal advice meetings with asylum seekers and refugees. The second examined communication processes in casework with asylum seekers considering repatriation. We explore how we each approached ethical dimensions of involving multilingual migrant participants in research, connecting our experiences with theorisations of vulnerability. We highlight how several different dimensions of vulnerability, including linguistic vulnerability, were intertwined in our projects, and how gatekeepers were instrumental in making decisions about the vulnerability of participants.