The point of departure for this paper is the opportunities and challenges experienced in the work of the Swedish Asylum Commission – Commission for review of legislation, law enforcement and legal security for people who applied for asylum in Sweden during the period 2015-17. The Asylum Commission was formed in the spring of 2019, by researchers and people with extensive knowledge about asylum in Sweden (e.g. people who have experiences as asylum seekers, social workers, teachers, and members of NGO’s and other networks in the civil society). The aim of the commission is to initiate critical enquiries of changes in the Swedish asylum process, based on asylum seekers’ own lived experiences and perspectives. The background to the Commission are changes in Sweden’s migration management in recent years and recurring testimonies in various settings depicting a very difficult situation for children, adolescents, and adult asylum seekers. These testimonies concern unpredictable and degrading decision-making processes, increasing homelessness, mental illness, broken families and more violent deportations to countries affected by armed conflict. The Asylum Commission aims to initiate academic and activist work departing from asylum seekers’ own perspectives and lived experiences. The work, inspired by participatory action research (lisahunter et al. 2013), is carried out in close collaboration between asylum seekers, researchers, professionals. (e.g. social workers, teachers), the voluntary sector and civil society actors (e.g. god man, Vi står inte ut, Ensamkommandes förbund). Thus, one important ambition with the work is to rely upon the expert knowledge of all participants in the commission and working within a collective for shared understandings, analysis and action.