Official URL: https://hidden-costaction.eu/

Migration is a global phenomenon and regarded as a global challenge both within and outside the European Union. According to the International Organization for Migration (2024), there were over 281 million international migrants in 2020, representing 3.6% of the world’s total population. Of these, 135 million were women, 146 million were men, and 28 million were children. But migration is not confined to crossing international borders: many people also migrate within their countries. While many migrate by choice, migration is also frequently driven by harsh realities such as persecution, conflict, and human rights violations. Forcibly displaced people are particularly vulnerable, with 122.6 million displaced globally as of mid2024. This includes 68.3 million internally displaced people, 37.9 million refugees, 8 million asylum-seekers, and 5.8 million people in need of international protection (UNHCR, 2024). These figures highlight the scale and complexity of migration and emphasise the urgent need to address the diverse challenges –including legal barriers, human rights concerns, and social exclusion– that people on the move face. This is why migration studies are vital. At the same time, we as researchers must remain aware of the fragility and complexity of migrants’ experiences, statuses and identities, as well as of our responsibilities and positionality. While scholarship on the ethical challenges in migration research has grown significantly, many important questions still remain unaddressed: questions that, in principle, emerge directly from fieldwork. To help map and address these questions, we brought the voices of researchers and those with experience of asylum and migration and their advocates to the forefront during a training school at Özyeğin University, Çekmeköy Campus, Istanbul in September 2024, following the motto nothing about us without us—an ethical principle followed by researchers to include those being researched in a participatory model of knowledge production. This toolkit represents the outcome of that collaboration. We hope it will help highlight some of the overlooked ethical concerns and shed light on the paths researchers are paving to ensure ethically responsible research, even when the concerns go beyond the formal requirements of institutional ethical clearance and professional standards. Welcome to HIDDEN.