Abstract
Abstract
This article investigates an important yet underexplored question in qualitative research: who owns the story? This article argues that story ownership is not a zero-sum property right but a relational practice of continuous negotiation of informed consent, and institutional reform. Therefore, it is critical for qualitative researchers to move beyond extractive research practices toward genuinely collaborative knowledge production that honours participants as co-creators. Drawing on a critical reflective investigation of seven researchers and eight Ukrainian entrepreneurs, and an interdisciplinary framework where power relations and stewardship theory, this study explores the contested terrain of narrative ownership across the research lifecycle.
The findings reveal three critical paradoxes: the simultaneity of ownership tension, the empowerment-exploitation, and the visibility-vulnerability tension. Therefore, this research makes timely contributions by challenging the researcher-as-sole-author paradigm, by exposing the political economy of academic publishing, and foregrounding participants' perspectives on ownership, a voice at the heart of qualitative research, yet absent from methodological discourse.