1.4 Dialogue in Narrative Inquiry: Collaboration in Doctoral Study in the USA

Abstract

In this chapter we describe a process of using dialogue to construct and re-construct interpretations in narrative inquiry. We used narrative and dialogue as partners in the pursuit of learning, what Bakhtin called ‘consciousness.’ Our approach to inquiry was collaborative and well suited to research that is multivocal and socially critical. We define dialogue as more than comfortable talk or questions/answers in an interview; it requires a willingness to ask hard questions, learn from differences, and maybe change one’s mind. It is nurtured by trust and openness. Dialogue carries ethical considerations and is burdened by the acknowledgement that learning involves taking risks and will likely call one’s assumptions and meanings into question. To develop our chapter, we used narrative in the initial telling of research stories. As authors (a professor and five U.S. and international doctoral student advisees) we narrated our individual research plans and experiences using dialogue to interrogate what we were writing and learning. We considered our work together as both a theoretical and methodological project that involved a particular approach to dialogue in narrative inquiry that was necessarily highly interpretation throughout. This process led us to new ways of thinking about dialogue in narrative inquiry as well as new methods to make our research more thoroughly narrative.