interview is a complex relational process and can unfold in ways that either invite or suppress the respondent's offerings. With the interviewer's keen sensitivity to the relationship and a continuing flexibility, respondents may supply far richer and more illuminating views than can ever be obtained through standardization. (p. 50)
Carolina comments on how she felt ‘a bit uneasy, a bit distressed because I was used to doing it in a more structured way.’ However, they described how, in general, the conversations were flowing, were very comfortable. It is important to mention that not all conversations took place in the same manner. Some were in person, others via different platforms, and other participants, like Christian, used blogs and social media.
Transcribing and Responding
Once all the first round of conversations have taken place, then the students transcribe all the recordings. We suggest that the facilitators of the research do this exercise. When listening to the voices, new inner dialogues emerge; we notice words, ideas, and nuances that we did not pay attention to when the conversation happened. It also helps the responding processes. In a way, the transcription is the starting point of this process. It allows us to take notes, write follow-up questions to help clarify, add our inner dialogue, and start bringing in voices from books, articles, daily life encounters, movies, songs, etc.
Janice DeFehr (2008) describes this stage as part of her dissertation process, as follows:
Narrating an account of the dialogue, for me, means telling a story of the dialogue's emergence from start to ‘finish,’ voice-by-voice, moment-to-moment, as accurately as I can. I narrate the dialogue from my ‘dual’ vantage point within it, first as a participant in the live spoken dialogue, and second, as a listener responding to the recorded conversation many months later. Not every word uttered in the original dialogue is included in the narration, although all words within quotation marks are written exactly as I hear them spoken. At the same time, additional words appear that were never part of the original spoken dialogue: my response to the dialogue recording expands the narration at various junctures. As I develop an account of the dialogue, I participate in the interchange with my colleagues once again. I cannot help but respond – with acknowledgment, questions, replies, additional ideas, and also, with feelings. Without a plan to guide me, I respond into the dialogue again for ‘another first time’ (Garfinkel, 1967, p. 9). My goal in narrating the dialogue is to invite involvement and active response, from readers of this text, and from myself. The production of a tightly coherent narrative end product is not a priority for me as I write. (p. 12)
Our guests to this article share with us how they did it. Christian mentioned how he never knew what his responses were going to be, and the dialogues had a life of their own: ‘… suddenly, very theoretical ideas appeared, they simply appeared as a response to all that was said in the conversation’. During this transcribing/responding process, the students start weaving what Cynthia describes as a multicolored shawl that will end up being the result of the inquiry.
Carolina describes responding as very organic. ‘[How something] makes you feel, how does that emotion emerge … how that reading, that anecdote, that thing that you just heard, that can be the result of anger, of joy, or something very tender … then I think that all the multiplicity of emotions and thoughts that arise, in a very spontaneous way, mean that I am responding’.
Cynthia also describes how responding was a constant ‘I allowed myself to respond by saying I am feeling this … a responsive process, rather than a process of analysis … for me to respond, is the process’. What takes place at this stage, is what Shotter (2008) describes as spontaneously responding to those words that touched/moved the facilitator during the conversations.
Returning to the Conversational Partners
Once the transcription/responding is done, the students return all these writings to the participants. The participants are asked to read everything in preparation for another round of conversations. It is important to mention that such reading takes place if the participants can do it. Once, we had a student who worked with Mayan women belonging to a cooperative who produce honey and derivatives from it. Those women did not know how to read and write and just spoke Mayan. The DSI facilitator translated everything into Mayan and read it to them so they could continue the process. We imagine that something similar could be done for visually impaired people where the transcriptions and responses could be read into audio and made available for them to listen to.
Once the co-researchers have read and/or listened to the transcription and responses to the first conversation, then a second conversation gets scheduled. Many times, when the first conversations happened individually, the participants ask the facilitator if they can have this second conversation as a group. The facilitator checks with all those involved, and if all of them agree, then the second conversation takes place as a group. It is important to consider that if one does not accept or is even hesitant, we continue with individual conversations.
Following-up Conversations
The follow-up conversation is facilitated, starting with just one question: ‘What do you think about the transcription of our previous conversation as well as my responses/reflections on it?’ As with the first conversation, there is no script to follow. The dialogue gets generated based on the responses that the co-researcher provides to this first question. For our thesis at the MA level, the students usually facilitate just this second round of conversations. However, if at any moment any of the participants, co-researchers or facilitator, feel that they need other conversations, they take place following the same pattern: conversation, transcription/spontaneous response by the facilitator, reading by the co-researchers, follow-up conversation. In a way, the dialogues get constructed always based on previous dialogues.
The Writing Process
Once all the participants agree that they have said all that they wanted to say, at least for the moment, the students at Kanankil start writing the first draft of their document. The document in itself will contain at least, the following: (a) the introduction: the description of the initial intentions as well as the transformation they went through; (b) methodology: the way in which the students facilitated the inquiry including the conversation/responses and their theoretical foundation; (c) the dialogues: what was produced as the results of the conversations/responses; (d) the learnings: what happened to them during the process of inquiry; (e) textual references.
The Dialogues
We invite the students to start writing the document with the dialogues. We frequently described this part as a weaving process. There are at least three threads that the facilitator brings together when writing this part: the voices of the co-researchers, his/her inner dialogues, and the voice of other authors who have facilitated research on the subject. She/he begins responding to all the conversations as a whole and, at the same time, observing the patterns that emerged from them. The patterns serve as a guide for the traditionally called review of the literature.
As with any dialogue, on this process of ‘weaving’ there are moments of what Christian calls creation ‘… and if I think about the process, the process ended up feeling like creation’. At this, Rocio responds by saying, ‘There are three words that I have been listening to: one is a response, another is the process, and the other is creativity’. Cynthia jumps and shares, ‘I agree … since you do not develop a methodology with previously established steps, but you live a process of curiosity and inquiry around a particular topic, for me, creativity is required to integrate and/or present all the information that emerges from the conversations’.
Once the students feel they have finished
