The Heart of the Matter: Navigating the Backstage Processes of Participatory Research

Abstract

In this editorial, we introduce our special collection that conceptualizes, analyses, and reflects on backstage processes in participatory research. Participatory research aspires to democratize the research process and contribute to empowerment, equality, and justice. Meanwhile, a growing body of literature attends to the struggles to achieve these promises. Drawing on Goffman’s metaphor of the backstage, this collection examines the backstage processes where contextual pressures, relational dynamics, and implicit hierarchies shape research practices. We view the backstage as an empirically grounded space to attend to the knotty and murky work that goes into participatory research approaches.

We identify three areas of contribution. First, the collection shows how the backstage is approached theoretically and conceptually understood. Four theoretical lenses emerge: system theories, critical theory, relational theory, and knowledge theory. These lenses open up the backstage of participatory research as an analytical site, foregrounding sensitizing concepts that can further develop the field. Second, the collection brings together a wide variety of qualitative methods to reflect on, deepen, and refine how we examine the backstage. These highlight reflexive practices, relational spaces, methodological adaptability, and structured tools for ethical reflection. Third, the articles refine our understanding of how we can foreground the backstage, for instance through relational practices, informal co-spaces, and navigating hierarchies and epistemological tensions. Tools such as backstage cafés, authentic listening, and the navigation of attachments may support his. By slowing down or stepping back, researchers can analyse the process more deeply and adapt methods in response.

Together these articles illuminate how backstage dynamics are fundamental to participatory research—and arguably to research more broadly. In line with earlier work, we argue that transparency about the backstage strengthens trustworthiness and credibility. The backstage is, then, at the heart of the matter for realizing the promises of participatory research.

Keywords

(5): participatory action research dilemma ethics collaborative research co-researchers community based participatory research

Introduction

Since the 1960s a wealth of participatory research approaches have been developed. Particularly in the last decade there is growing attention for these approaches and their methods because of their commitment to democratize the research process and work towards empowerment, equality and justice (Abma et al., 2019). This commitment is enacted through inclusion, mutual respect and ultimately collective action and social change (ICPHR, 2013). Participatory research can create space for marginalized voices, provide multiple perspectives, foster mutual learning, collaborative outputs, and ultimately, contribute to social and epistemic justice (Fricker, 2007). Given these opportunities, the increasing interest for these approaches is not suprising, as these line up with the continuing movement towards open science to enhance transparancy and accessibility of science. Moreover, these also align with an accompanied attention for research with societal impact.

A growing body of literature attends to the struggles to achieve the promises of participatory research. For example Groot et al. (2020, p. 237), reflecting on their study in psychiatric emergency care, describe how their research process even gave rise to epistemic injustice, for instance when researchers, due to time constraints, took the lead in writing the research report. They are definitely not the only scholars struggling to achieve the promises of participatory research in their study. Others have also shown how these promises can be undermined as a result of for instance time pressure, insufficient guidance, external pressures, value conflicts, power issues and other dilemmas (e.g. Banks & Brydon-Miller, 2019; Dedding et al., 2021; Nordentoft & Olesen, 2018; Phillips et al., 2018). There is thus wide recognition of the difficulties and ‘messiness’ (Cook, 2009) inherent to achieving these promises. Particularly in regard to the moral and ethical dilemmas, the need to “muddle through” (Schön, 1983, p. 42) and to live in and “stay with the trouble” (Haraway, 1988, 2016) has been acknowledged as a core responsibility of participatory researchers and a way to foster accountability. Increasingly scholars (such as Bartels & Friedman, 2022; Brydon-Miller & Banks, 2019; Cook, 2009; Groot, 2021) find space for reporting on and publishing what did not go well in research (Brydon-Miller & Banks, 2019). However, this has been given much less attention and remains underreseached. This special collection gives an impulse to foreground this knotty and murky work ‘at the backstage’ (Slagboom, 2024, borrowing Goffman’s term). We aim to highlight these processes to contribute to their place in the public accounts of participatory research. Such public acknowledgment and discussion of the backstage, we argue, is a way to further enhance, the methodology, ethical consciousness, expertise and quality of and transparancy in participatory research. In discussing these, we aim to learn together in conducting participatory research and contribute to achieving its promises.

The Backstage

Following Slagboom (2024), this special issue adopts Erving Goffman’s (1956) metaphor of the backstage to attend to subtle, everyday methodological and ethical challenges in participatory research, thereby enhancing our understanding of the research process itself. Drawing on dramaturgy, the backstage was particularly referred to as an arena where individuals prepared their self-presentations for the frontstage. Goffman argued that this backstage was the safe, hidden space to prepare to perform and manage impressions on others. Goffman, known for his microsociological approach, described the “back-region of everyday life” as the context in which “surpressed facts make an appearance” (Goffman, 1956, p. 69). Often enough scholars, such as Argyris and Schon (1974), Gouldner (1971/1971) and somewhat more indirectly Habermas (1984), have criticized Goffman for viewing the front-stage and the presentations and interactions there as mere opportunistic, insincere or ‘false’ public selves. Yet, Goffman had likely never intended his idea of the backstage to be interpreted in this way. Some scholars, for instance argue that instead the backstage was proposed to “highlight […] the complexity of social behavior: multidimensionality, multivocality, its sometimes ambiguous and complex behavior” (Mills et al., 2010, p. 674). Goffman (1956) discusses it as a region where individuals can draw upon, navigate and negotiate repertoires of actions and numerous characters. Later scholars have also shown how the backstage can be useful to describe and analyse acts of resistance and the navigation of hegemonic pressures – more in line with Goffman’s description that: “control of the backstage plays a significant role in the process of ‘work control’ whereby individuals attempt to buffer themselves from the deterministic demands that surround them.” (Ibid., p. 70-71).

In the context of participatory research approaches, it is in this more emancipatory, polysemantic and multiplicit sense that we draw upon Goffman’s idea of the backstage. In this special collection, we view the backstage as an empirically grounded space to pay attention to that, as Beeris et al. (2025, p. 2, this collection) formulate it, “what remains unarticulated, because it is personal, complex or morally difficult”. By attending to the knotty and murky work that comes with these kinds of research approaches, as well as to the limits and openings for empowerment, equality and justice that emerge through this work, we aim to open space for the articulation of different voices during the research process (Von Köppen, 2025). We also intend to make visible factors that shape the research beyond the process itself such as personal circumstances, contextual hierarchies and prior institutional mistrust (Breed et al., 2025; Michelen et al., 2025; Van Harten et al., 2025). In the literature, many of the aspects that we discuss in this special collection as part of the backstage have been discussed in other terms, for example as failures (Horton, 2008), complexities, and even more ominous as the “the dark side” (Bartels & Friedman, 2022, p. 99). Each of these approaches may draw attention to the undesired, unwanted aspects that may come about in participatory research. By drawing on Goffman’s metaphor of the backstage, we aim to take a more constructive approach that sees this backstage and what happens there not so much as unwanted or ‘unwelcome truths’ (Beeris et al., 2025 drawing on Abma et al., 2019), but rather as inherently part of and shaping the research process and its outcomes. Although the backstage in its semantics may suggest a more spatial approach, we do not merely see it as such, but rather as a context and sphere in which the research takes place that is necessarily intertwined with the public face of this research. Scholars participating in this special collection for instance describe what happens in the backstage as an ‘undercurrent’ (Jacobs, 2025), ‘shenanigans’ (Schrevel et al., 2026) and ‘messiness and muddle’ (Batool et al., 2026; Patterson et al., 2026 drawing on Cook, 2009).

We identify three overarching areas of contribution across the articles in this special collection. First, its contribution lies in the theories the articles use to engage with the backstage, second in the methodological approaches and methods they employ to examine this backstage and third, in how these articles deepen and refine our conceptual understanding of the backstage.

Centering the Backstage

The first area of contribution concerns how the authors in this special collection render the backstage visible. In the articles diverse, yet conceptually related theories guide the analyses. We find four main theoretical lenses, those that draw upon 1) system theories, 2) critical theories 3) relational theories and 4) knowledge theory. First, there are those that point out the importance of contextual factors that are not part of the research itself and are often left out of the analysis and reporting of studies. These scholars show how these contextual, encircling, factors remain publicly unspoken, yet loudly present and therewith propose to look at participatory research with for instance socio-ecological (Edwards et al., 2026), capability (Breed et al., 2025), and complexity theory (Van Harten et al., 2025). A second theoretical framework, applied by for instance Beeris et al. (2025), Batool et al. (2026), de Koning et al. (2025), Von Köppen (2025) and Schrevel et al. (2026), focuses on power dynamics and the implicit and at times neglected hierarchies within and beyond the research. These articles often draw upon Foucault and Habermas to understand the micro-interactions in the backstage and point out the concealed influence of these dynamics. Then, a third theoretical framework approaches the backstage as concerned with the relational aspects of participatory research. These articles analyse how moral and ethical dilemmas pervade the backstage of the research and demand different competencies and knowledge of researchers. These authors often draw upon key conceptual lenses in participatory research such as care ethics (Edwards et al., 2026; Patterson et al., 2026; Tronto, 1998). Some also approach this with knowledge theory and particularly draw upon the concept of epistemic justice (Abma et al., 2026; Fricker, 2007; Homem et al., 2025; Sain et al., 2025; Tavy et al., 2026; Van Harten et al., 2025).

These lenses open up the backstage of participatory research as an analytic site, foregrounding sensitizing concepts that can further develop the field. Among the concepts used across the contributions, three are particularly illustrative of how in the backstage somewhat taken-for-granted, outspoken and unspoken practices and relationalities influence participatory research and how its promises are actualized. Batool et al. (2026) propose the concept of ‘invisible ink’to indicate how tacit knowledge and implicit power assymetries in the backstage can come to the surface when relational facilitation is applied. Schrevel et al. (2026, drawing on Foucault) use the concept of ‘participation dispositif’; heterogeneous elements that make up the implicit and explicit practice of participatory research thereby shaping participation, knowledge production, and subject formation. In a closely related vein, Schuurmans et al. (2026, drawing on Bruun Jensen, 2007, p. 239) apply the concept of ‘attachments’ to capture the web of relations surrounding and permeating participatory research and that is of influence to how knowledge is produced in that research.

With regard to the second area of contribution, this special collection brings together a wide variety of qualitative methods to reflect on the backstage. This ranges from (auto)ethnography (Jacobs, 2025; Sain et al., 2025; Van Harten et al., 2025), mixed qualitative and participatory methods (Amundsen et al., 2026; Homem et al., 2025; Kint & De Donder, 2026; Michelen et al., 2025; Tavy et al., 2026) to collaborative inquiry (Batool et al., 2026; Beeris et al., 2025; Edwards et al., 2026; Huizenga et al., 2025; de Koning et al., 2025; Patterson et al., 2026; Schrevel et al., 2026; Schuurmans et al., 2026; Von Köppen, 2025). Using these methods and methodologies, these articles discuss the experiences, perceptions and knowledge of co-researchers and participants not often included in research such as people with severe mental health conditions (de Koning et al., 2025), adolescences (Batool et al., 2026), people with dementia (Huizenga et al., 2025), residents in nursing homes (Von Köppen, 2025) and people at the end of life (Sain et al., 2025). This illustrates the particular strength of participatory research in cultivating inclusive knowledge practices and opening up possibilities for epistemic justice. Yet the discussion of the backstage in these articles also highlights the variety in the extent to which methods and research processes actually allow for participatory involvement. Whereas some collaborate with co-researchers from the very formulation of the research question up to publication (Edwards et al., 2026), others have, due to all kinds of factors, a limited number of group sessions under high time pressure (Homem et al., 2025; Sain et al., 2025). Consequently, many authors in this special collection point out that if we want to take full advantage of the potential of participatory research, time is needed and the pace of research needs to adjust to all involved.

Importantly, the authors in this special collection are also brought together by their courage in letting go of—and going beyond—rather positivist held academic standards of objectivity, of systematicity and stability that authors admit often linger in the back of their minds. These accounts attend to everyday challenges encountered in their studies: what was missed, did not go according to plan, or deviated from preset agreements on collaboration. In the articles researchers analyse their own reflections, and in some, share candid reflections of and interactions with co-researchers (e.g. Beeris et al., 2025; Breed et al., 2025; Edwards et al., 2026; Schrevel et al., 2026; Schuurmans et al., 2026) and describe what some authors’ call their own ‘mistakes’ (Von Köppen, 2025; Huizenga et al., 2025; Jacobs, 2025) and the feelings of both themselves and their participants about these instances. With this endeavor, the authors put quite a bit on the line. They may face others who scrutinize their academic quality and the validity of their research. Yet, we would vehemently oppose such an assessment. Quite to the contrary, we argue that such transparency is essential for ensuring quality in qualitative research. Rather than viewing these moments as mistakes, these may be understood as inherent challenges that require care and attention in the relational praxis of participatory research, and, arguably, warrant consideration in any research. Attending to these challenges aligns with a growing body of scholarship that examines research processes itself, including moments of moral ambiguity in qualitative research (Van Drimmelen et al., 2025). Instead of brushing under the carpet (Lenette et al., 2019) that which is inherently part of the academic process, these transparent accounts help us to look at what is actually going on and analyse how we can do things differently. Or, at times, as some authors point out (Breed et al., 2025, Kint & De Donder, 2026), the backstage is simply present beyond the research itself and it may be inescapable to create space and time for the ongoing processes in that backstage.

The third contribution we identified of this special collection points to ways in which we could go about centering the backstage. First and foremost all authors foreground the need for self-reflexivity (Amundsen et al., 2026;Bradbury et al., 2025; Korstjens & Moser, 2018) to follow what is needed in the backstage. This reflection may lead them towards stronger awareness of their own assumptions and a need for letting go – of preconceptions about being a researcher (Beeris et al., 2025; Edwards et al., 2026), about leadership (Jacobs, 2025) or about how research should go (Batool et al., 2026; Breed et al., 2025; Van Harten et al., 2025). Reflections are also needed to foster consciousness and ways of dealing with power hierarchies that may even emerge as a consequence of the research (Homem et al., 2025; Tavy et al., 2026). In this regard, the authors also discuss how continuous reflections about their own (hierarchical) positionality (van Harten et al., 2025), and implicit and explicit tensions in the research are needed. Particularly telling are those instances in which authors discuss the silences and moments of withdrawal that are (unconciously) glossed over for the sake of relationality, continuity, and time, even though these may be the very moments in which epistemic injustice and disempowerment occur (see also Brannelly & Barnes, 2023). Working through these moments and the political, relational, moral and existential issues that are at play through ethical reflection in “care-full research”, questioning current research practices and the structures in which these are embedded (Kint & De Donder, 2026) or using a more structured methodology such as the Circling Around Your Research (CAYR, de Koning et al., 2025) or the Ishikawa diagram (Homem et al., 2025).

Authors also propose some methods and methodologies that enable an explicit acknowledgment of the backstage across the different phases of the research. In preparing research, a closer look at representation (Schrevel et al., 2026), an explicit social justice lense (Kint & De Donder, 2026), and an unstructured informal space (Batool et al., 2026; Patterson et al., 2026) can provide room to acknowledge and find ways of working within and beyond hierarchies. During the research, relational work such as exercises to create trust and equality can support the analysis of backstage dynamics. Some ways to do so are for instance in backstage cafés (Batool et al., 2026), as in-between spaces for (co-)researchers, by authentic engagement through conscientiously listening (Huizenga et al., 2025; Michelen et al., 2025), by creating communicative space enabled through time, creativity and relational sensitivity and reciprocity (Beeris et al., 2025; Jacobs, 2025; Tavy et al., 2026) and sorting out how reseachers relate and navigate epistemological politics through “attachments” (de Koning et al., 2025; Schuurmans et al., 2026). Some authors propose that stepping back from the research is needed to disentangle oneself from the research and the planned actions and outcomes. This allows for genuinely analysing what is going on, for instance through slowing down (Abma et al., 2026 Schrevel et al., 2026) and shifting focus (Michelen et al., 2025; Kint & De Donder, 2026). The analysis of the backstage may then lead to changing methods (Homem et al., 2025; Von Köppen, 2025), and to an explicit acknowledgment and engagement with contexts beyond the research practice (Breed et al., 2025; Schuurmans et al., 2026). Such moments of disengagement allow researchers to shift perspectives, to analyse not just the findings but the process itself as part of good research. Making the backstage part of the center stage in our public accounts of research ensures more trustworthy and credible findings.

Advancing the Backstage

As part of this special collection, the authors have each engaged in distinctive experiments with the backstage. This has emphasized that the frontstage cannot do without the backstage and appreciates their intertwinement. It is only through acknowledging this and engaging with it transparently that we can enhance the quality of participatory research. Taken together, what stands out in this special collection are two things: first the backstage’s invisibility of public accounts of participatory research and second the fundamental importance of this backstage for the research process and its outcomes.

The articles in this special collection highlight several gaps that we need to address for the future. First, they point out a number of preconditions that would allow a more profound engagement with the backstage. These include decreasing barriers within our existing academic systems in a process which Kint & De Donder (2026) call ‘de-creation’. Furthermore, stringent and structured Institutional Review Board (IRB) processes (Edwards et al., 2026) can be further reoriented to open processes (see for instance Guta et al., 2012; Klitzman, 2012; Lynch, 2018; Peled-Raz et al., 2021). Academic recognition and reward systems can create space for participatory research by diversifying how participatory research is valued and the collaborative work, time and commitment this requires. Relatedly, the authors of this special collection ask for more time to do justice to participatory work in the preparation of research, during the research, but also argue for enabling and supporting more longterm research (Edwards et al., 2026; Huizenga et al., 2025).

To take the current field further, we suggest that there are ample areas left unattended to in this special collection. In general, more comparative analyses, for instance through ongoing and international reflective spaces (such as co-laboratories Groot-Sluijsmans et al.), also with co-researchers may help us identify patterns in the backstage that we have pointed at with this collection. This collection, also raises questions about what happens to the backstage in the last phases of participatory research, and what the impact may be on the co-researchers and participants, especially when the research is formally ‘done’. Similarly, although we read about the perspectives of co-researchers and in some articles they are co-authors (Batool et al., 2026; Huizenga et al., 2025; Michelen et al., 2025; Patterson et al., 2026), we may ask: in what other ways can we properly honor their knowledge and experiences and foster epistemic justice? For instance, are there ways in which we can advance and give space to their theories in use and acknowledge them for this? Finally, with few exceptions (Breed et al., 2025; Edwards et al., 2026; Schrevel et al., 2026), in the articles included in this collection, we follow the perspectives of the researchers and in a majority of the articles primarily the first author. This makes us wonder, what about the lived experiences of co-researchers? The others involved? And those implicated in the implicit hierarchies such as supervisors, coordinators and external stakeholders and sponsors?

Concluding Thoughts

Through their explicit attention for the backstage, the authors of this special collection have shown that processes that remain underresearched in academic articles are actually at the heart of the matter. At first glance, and given the articles included in this collection, this may seem like a particular issue for participatory research. However, backstage processes are by no means confined to this research design. Across research paradigms—whether experimental (for instance Petersen et al., 2012; Roope et al., 2025), observational (e.g. Ricotta et al., 2025) or cross-sectional (see e.g. Kingori & Gerrets, 2016)—these backstage processes are of influence on the validity and the quality of our research. The articles in this special collection describe how our approaches, methods and systemic processes may actually be reinforcing structural inequalities, hierarchical positionality and undermine participatory research. The backstage may therewith be viewed as endangering the core promises of contributing to social empowerment, equality and justice through participatory research. Yet, the backstage will not go away by largely ignoring it or approaching it as mistakes or failures. We therefore argue that instead we should pay explicit attention to the everyday backstage as a productive concept that may enhance methodological quality and impact. Viewing the backstage in such a way, in all phases of the research, may ultimately bring us closer to reaching the promises of participatory research.

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Jolanda Lindenberg

Tineke.A. Abma

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