Reframing impostor participants: Ethical tensions and researcher positionality in online qualitative research

This reflective case study interrogates conventional imposter participation frameworks through ethical dilemmas that emerged during a qualitative study with postpartum women who had experienced trauma and substance use. Initially concerned with participant deception, the research team encountered potential signs of coercion, economic precarity, and structural vulnerability. These moments prompted a reframing of “imposter participants” as individuals navigating systemic constraint and raised critical tensions around power, positionality, and researcher responsibility. Drawing on relational ethics and critical reflexivity frameworks, we offer practical recommendations for ethically responding to unintended participation under duress, advocating for relational, justice-oriented practices that foreground dignity, structural awareness, and social accountability in ethically ambiguous research contexts.