This seminar will detail a research project (2020-2022) designed to surface the lived experiences and challenges refugee students face in accessing and participating in higher education in Uganda. This discussion will be framed around communicative action and liminality. Using the lived experiences of refugee students in Ugandan universities, alongside accounts of administrators in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and civil society actors, we examined HEIs institutional practices and structures for refugee students’ access, how civil society actors support access and participation of refugee students, and what role the digital has in managing participation within this nexus of brokering and barriers. Spoiler alert: it is complicated.