FREIE

UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN

OTTO-SUHR-INSTITUT FÜR POLITIKWISSENSCHAFT

TO PUT OURSELVES IN THE LINE OF FIRE

DIALOGUE AND REFLEXIVITY IN CRITICAL SOCIAL RESEARCH

Hauptseminar: Flucht und Gewalt
Leitung: Prof. Dr. Sven Chojnacki
Teilnehmer: Oscar Santiago Vargas Guevara
Studiengang: M.A. Internationale Beziehungen
Matrikel-Nr.: 794750

SOMMERSEMESTER 2018

5.889 Wörter


Table of Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................................. 3

Critical social research: Oppression & Emancipation ............................................... 4

My problem with current critical methods .............................................................. 6

Freirean dialogue in Pedagogy of the Oppressed ..................................................... 9

Retrospective reflexivity & authentic dialogue ...................................................... 11

Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 15

Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 16

 TO PUT OURSELVES IN THE LINE OF FIRE
DIALOGUE AND REFLEXIVITY IN CRITICAL SOCIAL RESEARCH

INTRODUCTION

One of the hallmark features of critical social research is its demand for reflexivity within the investigative
process. According to the mainstream understanding of reflexivity, researchers should undergo a
continuous process of reflection, looking at the ways in which they influence and exert power over the
subject matter through their judgments and positionality. This obeys critical research’s main objective to
break down power structures within scientific relationships and foster the emancipation of the subject.
The process requires a “thorough re-examination of power within the knowledge-building process in
order to avoid creating knowledge that continued to be complicit in the oppression of minority groups”
(Leavy 2009: 8). A fair amount of literature has been dedicated to this interpretation, analysing it from
ethical (Harding 1987; Reinharz 1992), epistemic (Sabi 2008) and methodological (Henn et al. 2009)
standpoints. While I am convinced of the need for these self-awareness practices within the research
process, and I acknowledge this interpretation’s predominant weight in critical social science, I believe
this notion of reflexivity to be incomplete.

Indeed, Attia and Edge (2017) recognise two main kinds of reflexivity: prospective reflexivity, which
concerns itself with the effect of the researcher on the research subject, thus broadly overlapping with
the hegemonic view of reflexivity we outlined above. The second kind they refer to is retrospective
reflexivity, which looks at the opposite process, or at how the research affects the researcher. Following
Mann (2016), this concept is bound by mutual shaping, reciprocity and bi-directionality, and refers to “the
ways in which one may affect and be affected, which define a continuum of change that gets inside what
it means to exist in a situation” (Cole & Masny 2012: 1). In what follows, I seek to make a defense of
retrospective reflexivity, detailing its fundamental role in reaching the social goals espoused by critical
research.

Grounding my analysis on Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970/1993), I argue that even a
comprehensive deconstruction of power dynamics, which researcher and research subject conduct in
isolation, is lacking. A truly emancipatory practice will include both researcher and subject; thus the focus
must lie on their interaction and on their development before, during and after their encounter. In
Redwood’s words, the process should be a “shared adventure in interpretation” (2008: 9). This requires
an explicit focus on the researcher perspective: from his/her background, prejudices, preferences, to
his/her experiences and transformation during and after the process. Methodologically, this demands the
inclusion of methods of self-observation, such as autoethnography, to be included throughout any
research process.

This paper emerges from my engagement in Peace Education during the past couple of years, in which I
have come in touch both with Freirean pedagogy, as well as Gandhian notions of nonviolence and work
on the self. I experienced the two-way transformative nature of these practices last year during a two-
week long workshop with twenty-five Afghan university students in New Delhi, India. The activity,
organised by Standing Together to Enable Peace (STEP) Trust, and funded by the US Institute of Peace
(USIP), was themed around Gandhi’s nonviolent struggle, and it aimed to give participants the knowledge
and tools to engage in peace activism in their home town. Far beyond this explicit goal, however, I saw
how participants began to deconstruct deep-rooted assumptions, for instance about Islam, gender, peace
and violence, and to engage in a critical analysis of their own social contexts. At the same time, I
thoroughly re-examined my own preconceptions on these subjects, tinted through my own experience as
a Colombian M.A. student – stemming from a conservative context with a marked ‘macho’ culture – living
in Germany – seeping with conflicting views on Islam and its role in Germany and in Europe.

CRITICAL SOCIAL RESEARCH: OPPRESSION & EMANCIPATION

Critical social research is built from a critique of traditional positivist approaches, which are viewed as
passive activities that, in the best of cases, leave power relations undisturbed, and in the worst, actively
reproduce them throughout the research process. In this view, social researchers should employ their
skills in the field of knowledge creation to advance emancipatory goals. “Social research can and should
become a powerful vehicle for challenging the existence of racial prejudice, campaigning for the removal
of gender inequalities, for the emancipation of people with disabilities, and to generally give voice to
oppressed groups in society”(Henn et al., 2009: 29). There are is one main interrelated concepts to unpack
in this initial definition: oppression.

In regards to the first, I retake Galtung’s definition of violence as a curtailing of human potential (1990),
and will employ this alternately with the concept of “oppression”. He differentiates between (a) direct
physical violence exerted on one’s body, (b) structural conditions of disadvantage, such as economic
inequality or unequal access to healthcare and education, and (c) cultural features that can be used to
legitimise violence, in its direct or structural form. While direct and structural violence can be – and have
been – analysed employing external observable variables, such as the number and kinds of attacks in a
conflict zone, or the density of doctors and teachers in a population, cultural violence is much harder to
assess and tackle. On the other hand, critical social research can indirectly address issues of direct and
structural violence, for instance by encouraging reflection on non-violent communication and practice, or
by fostering engagement in favour of social justice. However, its main addressee is cultural violence, which
permeates the research process in the form of ethnic, religious or cultural prejudices, or even in the
hierarchies implicit in academia. In what follows, I will be referring mostly to this kind of violence, as it
seeps through the relationship between interviewer and interviewee.

Contrary to the concepts of oppression and violence, which have been analysed from a variety of
perspectives within critical social research, emancipation has not been defined in clear-cut positive terms.
The concept is mostly framed in negative terms, as the overcoming of a situation of oppression, while an
in-depth analysis of its positive implications has, to my knowledge, not been undertaken in academic
literature. There might be good reason for this: positing a positive definition of emancipation risks
imposing hegemonic assumptions of what constitutes a valuable development, or a good life, upon
minority populations. I certainly do not attempt to fill this void in the literature here, but asking the
question does lead us to the performative side of critical research: how can we engage in meaningful
research that breaks down relations of oppression within the research process itself?

In answering this question, I focus on the practice of reflexivity, which has been central to answering this
question, and has been conceptualised from a myriad of standpoints. I have found four main
complementary interpretations of reflexivity within the sociological literature: reflexivity as (a) an ethical
imperative towards the research subject, (b) an ethical imperative towards the reader, (c) a linguistic
commitment towards meaning openness, and (d) an instrumental means of variable control. First and
foremost, reflexivity obeys an ethical imperative towards the research subject. By placing themselves in
the same critical plane as the subject, critical researchers seek to break down the traditional hierarchical
power structures in research relationships, and thus make an active contribution towards the subject’s
conscious emancipation (Harding 1987). Reinharz identifies a second ethical concern towards the reader:
“I have feminist distrust for research reports that include no statement on the researcher’s experience.
Reading such reports, I feel that the researcher is hiding from me or does not know how important
personal experience is. Such reports seem woefully incomplete and even dishonest” (1992: 263). Sabi
(2008) recourses back to Derrida, to criticise a form of violence carried out by scientists when they
establish patterns, forcing the otherness into some kind of order, while at the same time excluding a
myriad of alternative interpretations. This sort of epistemic violence occurs, when the author fails to
acknowledge his/her situatedness, preferring to occupy a privileged third person perspective, in order to
impose meaning and coherence. Henn et al. (2009) add an instrumental perspective, conceiving of
reflexivity as a way “to minimize the unintentional effects of power in the research process through
attention to the ways that biography, authorship, and textual representation mediate the knowledge-
building process” (4). In other words, reflexivity helps to control for the influence of power relations in
the final results of the investigation.

Attia and Edge (2017) have reduced this initial typology even further, recognising only two main kinds of
reflexivity: On the one hand, prospective reflexivity concerns itself with the effect of the researcher on the
research subject. Prospective reflexivity has been more frequently addressed in the literature, for instance
when deciding how to handle gender, ethnicity, researcher status, insider/outsiderness when carrying out
field research. Rather than discarding such influences as data contamination, prospective reflexivity seeks
to “help researchers grow their capacity to understand the significance of the knowledge, feelings, and
values that they brought into the field to the research questions that they came to formulate, to the
analytical lenses that they chose to employ, and to their findings” (Attia & Edge 2017: 35). The second
kind they refer to is retrospective reflexivity, which looks at the opposite process, or at how the research
affects the researcher. Following Mann (2016), this concept is bound by mutual shaping, reciprocity and
bi-directionality, and refers to “the ways in which one may affect and be affected, which define a
continuum of change that gets inside what it means to exist in a situation” (Cole & Masny 2012: 1).

The following paper is located in this intersection. I seek to make a defence of retrospective reflexivity,
detailing its fundamental role in reaching the social goals espoused by critical research. By no means
should this be understood as my discarding prospective reflexivity, but rather as an appeal for their
parallel practice and promotion. In arriving to this final argument, however, I first digress by taking
distance from two main critical investigative frameworks, experiential and participatory research, in order
to flesh out an understanding of authentic dialogue, which I will then bolster with a recourse to Freire.

MY PROBLEM WITH CURRENT CRITICAL METHODS

There are several methodological strands within critical research, which in different ways attempt to
foster the research subject’s emancipation through the investigative process. In what follows, I first
position myself critically towards two of these methodologies, experiential and participatory research,
before proposing a set of considerations for future research.

The experiential methodology is grounded on phenomenology and narrativity, and their ability to open
up qualitative dimensions of human experience. Kidd and Kidd describe its purpose as bringing the
subjective meaning of individual experience, which is often implicit, to the forefront of observation. Focus
is placed on spontaneous descriptions, which “carry into expression tonal qualities of experience, mooded
feelings not often apparent” (2003). Though methods are admittedly varied, they mainly revolve around
an individual interview or group discussion with very limited questions asked on the part of the researcher,
and extense narrative accounts by each participant. Henry Giroux points out that such pedagogy leaves
identity and experience removed from the problematics of power, agency, and history. These methods
exotify the sharing of lived experience as a process of coming to voice, thus fetishizing it and flattening
out any sort of conflict or disagreement between subjects and the world (2009). Macedo goes a step
further in calling this sort of pedagogy “a form of middle-class narcissism”, which offers the facilitator “a
safe pedagogical zone to deal with his or her class guilt” (2005: 18). The bind of the issue lies in the failure
to problematize an oppressive reality and to encourage resistance and transformation on the part of the
subject, thus failing to tie into emancipatory theory and praxis, in the assumption that standpoint
epistemology is enough (Oliver 2002). As Denzin puts it, “A politics of action or praxis, however, is seldom
offered” (1997: 54).

Participatory research, on the other hand, comprises a range of methodological approaches and
techniques, which seek to give participants control over the research agenda, process and actions. Most
importantly, research subjects themselves help to analyse and reflect on the information generated, in
order to obtain findings and conclusions of the research process. Contrary to experiential research,
participatory methods do involve praxis to a certain extent, since research subjects do not only discuss
their problems, but they also think about possible solutions to them and actions which need to be taken.
More than a concrete research method however, Bergold and Thomas (2012) argue, participatory
methodology is rather a style of conducting research, which argues in favour of the significance and
usefulness of involving research partners in every step of the knowledge-production process. Examples of
methods involving this framework are Participatory Action Research (Kemmis & McTaggart 2005), Co-
Operative Inquiry (Heron 1996), Participatory Rural Appraisal and Participatory Learning and Action
(Chambers 2008). Oliver (2002) mainly criticises participatory research on a case-by-case basis, looking
down upon rushed inclusions of research participants that end up hurting more than helping the research
process and the power relations themselves. Concretely, he rejects approaches that either seek to give
almost direct control of the research process to people who have not been properly trained in the aims
and procedures of investigation; as well as those that work directly with large advocacy organisations,
which are often detached from the realities on the ground.

Beyond these mentioned critiques, however, there is an additional flaw: both these approaches maintain
undivided attention on the research subject, while tending to obviate the researcher. Certainly, many of
these analysis do go out of their way to include disclaimers on researcher positionality, in keeping with
the tradition of critical social research. Following up with my argument last chapter, this quasi-residual
admission of bias, which stems from simple prospective reflexivity is not enough, because it is only
treating the researcher person as a nuance. The person-as-researcher is merely a mediator between the
reader and the world, whose unwanted effect on the research is to be acknowledged, albeit in shame and
regret. This tendency is seen both in experiential research’s attempt to produce and represent the
research subject’s clear and extense narrative accounts with as little intervention as possible; as well as
in participatory research’s desire to hand over almost complete control over the investigation away from
the trained academic onto the research subject. As I mentioned above, this is owed to critical research’s
aim of moving away from paternalist and oppressive notions present in the positivist and some strands of
the interpretivist paradigm.

My argument here is clearly not to return to this one-sided model of analysis, but to defend an authentic
form of exchange between researcher and research subject; even more, a true dialogue would attempt
to break down the roles of researcher and subject, who would then be thrusted into a plane of
heterogeneity. More than a model, in which the researcher extirpates him/herself from the process, or in
which almost entire control is handed over to the research subject, I argue in favour of a conversation
between equals, between persons who analyse the world together. Rather than locking away the person-
as-researcher in fear of its oppressive effects on the research subject; rather than seeing it as an empty
vessel to mediate knowledge back to reader; rather than solely portraying it as a necessary evil to
encourage critical thinking in the subject, I advocate understanding the exclusive moment of exchange as
a potentially good event for both parties involved – a big focus is placed here on the word potentially. In
the following chapter, I delve into Paulo Freire’s dialogic model to flesh out these claims.

FREIREAN DIALOGUE IN PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED

Paulo Freire brooches the notion of retrospective reflexivity in an indirect manner, which I intend to
elaborate on in the present chapter through his concept of meaningful dialogue. In Pedagogy of the
Oppressed (1973/90), Freire’s aim is first, to critique what he terms the “banking model of education”,
reliant on a unidirectional communication framework, in which the teacher seeks to transfer information,
to then be received and memorized by students. Instead, he proposes a “problem-posing education”, in
which both teachers and students simultaneously and cooperatively analyse the world, as it is relevant to
the students’ everyday lives. Through such an open and participatory approach, students should develop
a critical view on the situations of oppression they experience on a daily basis, so as to de-mystify them
and re-understand them as an objective living condition to be transformed through active and reflected
praxis. Macedo beautifully summarizes this goal in the following words:

Reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed gave me a language to critically understand the tensions,
contradictions, fears, doubts, hopes, and ‘deferred’ dreams that are part and parcel of living a
borrowed and colonized cultural existence. […] Reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed gave me the
critical tools to reflect on, and understand, the process through which we come to know what it means
to be at the periphery of the intimate yet fragile relationship between the colonizer and the colonized
(2005: 12).

I do Freire an injustice by cutting an explanation of his overarching theme short, in the hopes of getting
to his notion of dialogue. Before this, however, I anticipate one criticism. Sceptics may ask why and how
writings on pedagogy should inform practice within social research – to add perjure to injury, Freire’s
marked indebtedness to the Theology of Liberation makes him rather inapprehensible for more orthodox
social research. Research and education are, they would say, very different things. I, however, share
Freire’s understanding of their deep intertwining. Problem-posing education demands reflection upon our
‘being in a situation’, which ceases to be perceived as an unsurmountable reality, and acquires the
appearance of a problematic situation to be changed. This process requires a thorough collaborative
investigation, which is then to be shared again with the community. “Every thematic investigation which
deepens historical awareness is thus really educational, while all authentic education investigates
thinking. The more educators and the people investigate the people’s thinking, and are thus jointly
educated, the more they continue to investigate. Education and thematic investigation, in the problem-
posing concept of education, are simply different moments of the same process” (Freire 1973/90: 109).
Dialogue for Freire is not a simple technique used to engage students in a subject matter. Dialogue is an
epistemological relationship, an indispensable of the process of both learning and knowing, which
necessarily happens in society, not individually (Freire & Macedo 1995). Dialogue is also not a goal in and
as of itself – as could be inferred from some strands of critical pedagogy which put the sole individual
experience and its narration at the forefront of the analysis –, but a means to better comprehend a subject
matter (Macedo 2005: 18). Freire’s markedly Arendtian notion of dialogue reflects an encounter between
equals, who meet to observe, analyse and characterise – or “name” – the world, in order to transform it
through their common praxis. Dialogue is thus “an act of creation; it must not serve as a crafty instrument
for the domination of one person by another. The domination implicit in dialogue is that of the world by
the dialoguers; it is conquest of the world for the liberation of human kind” (Freire 1973/90: 89). According
to Freire, and once again echoing Arendt, this practice responds to an ontological determination in
humans to speak up and act on the world in a reflected manner.

Freire further proposes five main features, which characterise any meaningful dialogue:

a. Love: Dialogue, as a component in the praxis of mutual liberation, must be marked by a sense of
commitment to others and to their personal and societal struggles. In its absence, dialogue would
not be nothing but manipulation. Love is thus a precondition for dialogue.
b. Humility: Considering dialogue is understood as a communicative encounter between equals,
Freire considers necessary that both partners also acknowledge this equality in the alliance to
name the world. “At the point of the encounter there are neither utter ignoramuses nor perfect
sages; there are only people who are attempting, together, to learn more than they now know”
(Freire 1973/90: 90).
c. Faith: This humility must be paired with a sense of faith in the intentions and capabilities of the
dialogic partner. For Freire, this does not mean naiveté, for one may still be aware that certain
situations of alienation may impair individuals in their use of their creative power. Nonetheless,
this is to be interpreted as a challenge to be overcome, believing in the partner’s innate ability to
speak up and act. Absence of faith degenerates into paternalism.
d. Hope: Dialogue implies incompletion, a flawed social reality that needs to be transformed through
praxis. Faith in the dialogic partner must be paired with a sense of hope that something positive
will come out of their actions. “If the dialoguers expect nothing to come of their efforts, their
encounter will be empty and sterile, bureaucratic and tedious” (Freire 1973/90: 91).
 e. Critical thinking: Dialogue must engage in critical thinking, which refuses to understand reality as
a static unmovable entity, but rather tracks it down as an ongoing process. This realization should
then move the dialoguers to engage in a transforming praxis in the world, beyond the dialogical
situation.

Admittedly, Freire does employ a predominantly theological vocabulary, which can make it hard to reach
for social scientist. To an extent, however, these principles can and often do accompany critical research:
a sense of commitment to the human being of the research partner, a humble acknowledgement of one’s
positionality, an intrinsic faith in the good intentions of the research subject (whose sincerity we tend not
to question during an interview, for example), hope in the encounter’s emancipatory potential, as well as
the wish to critically examine the world. In the previous chapter, I briefly addressed my reasons for
preferring a Freirean model of dialogue over, for example, an experiential or participatory approach. I
reject the attempt of mitigating the researcher’s personal involvement outright, even in the interest of
allowing the oppressed to ‘come to voice’. Indeed, ‘coming to voice’ cannot occur in a monological
situation, in which the interlocutor hides away; a loose narrative – as complete and faithful as it might be
– cannot fully represent an individual. From a developmental psychological perspective, we first come to
appreciate ourselves as distinct beings through our interactions with the Other, and this is also where the
research process needs to begin: in the encounter. If this dialogue is authentic, not permeated by mistrust
and hierarchy, only then can a truly collaborative and emancipatory practice take place. How can then
one conduct this kind of dialogue within the research process? This is where retrospective reflexivity
comes in handy. I will turn to this question in the coming chapter.

RETROSPECTIVE REFLEXIVITY & AUTHENTIC DIALOGUE

The large argumentative loop notwithstanding, I come to the core of my argument: The emancipatory
objective of critical social research can only be fulfilled in a process of authentic dialogue, in which
researcher and research partner engage as equal persons in the analysis of the world, and its oppressive
conditions. This dialogue requires that the researcher opens up, both to the reader as well as the research
partner, as much (or more) as is being expected of the research partner. This act of self-uncovering can
be accompanied by a self-discovery; in other words, in our attempt to disclose more information about
ourselves in dialogue, we can come to understand it better. Retrospective reflexivity thus becomes crucial
to mediating our interaction with our research partner, the reader and the research itself.
I have already introduced a vision of what this kind of reflexivity entails, borrowing from Attia and Edge’s
typology (2017). As said, on the one hand, prospective reflexivity concerns itself with the effect of the
researcher on the research subject. In contrast, retrospective reflexivity looks at the opposite process, or
at how the research affects the researcher. In a conference last year, Greg Seigworth introduced his On a
Stroll: Encounters with Affect (2017), a geometric typology for conceptualisations of affect in
contemporary sociological literature: point, line, plane. Point refers to each moment of contact between
bodies, be it human beings, objects, places and even ideas, in the most abstract cases. In these
encounters, both objects impinge onto one another, from the unnoticed to the impossible-not-to-notice,
these events compose our daily lives. These points of contact are small parts of a large network of
interactions that represents our individual and collective ongoingness. One way or the other, however,
these interactions do entail a shift, as little as it may be.

“These points of contact, of intensity, of touch, of encounter never occur in isolation – they perpetually
jostle with, disrupt, or otherwise join in as one more point among a shifting multitude of point-
encounters. They serve as merely one further point of contact, but – however small such an encounter
may be – it registers somewhere, maybe only dimly, in the composition of a life, of an existence. Hence,
in the wedge of that moment, there follows a tiny (sometimes LARGER) shift or modulation in how
you register your world and perhaps in how your world registers you, in how you and your world (often
impersonally & nonconsciously) recognize and move in a relation – even if this relation is a non-relation
– to one another.” (Seigworth 2017: 1, Capitals in the original).
A single life is marked by a series of encounters with others, a series of points that shift its course in one
way or the other, and combine to form a single, ever-shifting line. At certain stages of life, these points
can follow successively, representing minor changes or everyday routines, only occasionally marked by
spikes and turns, the relevant moments of crisis and transformation. In a similar vein than Barthes’s
description of emotionally moving art, “the photographs I am speaking of are in effect punctuated,
sometime speckled with these sensitive points […] punctum is also: sting, cut, little hole – and also a cast
of the dice. A photograph’s punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to
me)” (qtd. in Seigworth 2018: 5). The plane in which these life-forming interactions, line-forming
punctuations, occur, is that of immanent possibility. While these encounters happen in one specific way,
they could also have occurred in a thousand different ones – they are full of potentiality and sheer
randomness. It is in this raw potential and ambivalence that Berlant sees hope of transcending the
objectified and attached existence brought about by neo-liberalism (2011).

A retrospectively reflexive research practice must look at all these three moments in the person of the
researcher, while also allowing the research partner to come to voice in these same terms. First, the
nature of the encounter itself – the point – must be reflected upon: Where are we meeting? Does he/she
feel safe in this environment? Do I feel intimidated or at ease by the setting? Are we dressed similarly or
does this set us apart from the onset? Do we speak the same language? Is it hard to communicate? How
does this make both of us feel in these concrete situation? Is our encounter being particularly emotional,
or are we purposefully steering clear of that area? Then, the meeting should be contextualized into our –
and their – life story, towards both past and future: How am I entering this situation? Am I predominantly
concerned with my advancement in academia through top-notch field research? Do either I or my
research partner have a broader political or ideological agenda during these interview? Does the research
partner remind me of someone from my past – or vice-versa –, for example, an abusive parent, an
overachieving friend, a sickly son/daughter, thus making me react in a certain way? Are we projecting our
own class guilt towards the research partner? How is this encounter shaping our perspectives, vocabulary
and even empathetic reactions towards a specific group of people? Will a friendship or a closer
relationship evolve out of this encounter? On a final note, it can be helpful to then reflect on alternative
routes the encounter could have taken: it could have been friendlier/more hostile, our relationship could
have evolved in one way, or the other. Key here is to reflect on the possible reasons why it did or didn’t
happen in a specific way.

Now, certainly, the same normative conditions of traditional critical research apply: from the onset, we
should avoid taking a dominant position in the conversation, or projecting our own insecurities onto the
research partner, and allow him/her to freely develop their own narrative. The exercise in retrospective
reflexivity includes looking at how well we achieved these goals or not. Nonetheless, these considerations
must necessarily go beyond normative aspects of power and domination. They must dig into the
emotional and personal transformation undergone by both persons-as-researchers. What sets this
approach apart from other critical frameworks is that the details of our observations aren’t only left for
the reader, as a side note in our published paper. It must also be continuously shared with the research
partner at any relevant stage of the process: questions of how we may be struggling with our past when
visiting his context, how our preconceptions are currently tinting our understanding, how our current
emotions may be hindering or enabling us to reach a better comprehension of his/her reality. Such an
approach focuses not on a reality out there, not even on a subject’s concrete and isolated understanding
of that reality. Its focus lies on the production of a common world between initial opposites, researcher
and research subject, towards a mutual understanding of each other as equals, along with all the
difficulties this entails. In encountering one another in a certain nakedness, in vulnerability, we are in a
much better position to engage in authentic dialogue à la Freire. We need to put ourselves in the line of
fire.
I am not in a position here to delineate a concrete method of inquiry that brings this principle into practice;
indeed, I believe many currently employed methods can be adapted to fit these criteria. For example, Spry
has already noted how “autoethnographic texts reveal the fractures, sutures, and seams of self interacting
with others in the context of researching lived experience. In interpreting the autoethnographic text,
readers feel/sense the fractures in their own communicative lives, and like Gramsci’s notion of the organic
intellectual, create efficacy and healing in their own communal lives” (2001: 712). An example here would
be employing similar analytical techniques throughout the research process, while also encouraging the
research partner to self-analyse, and then mutually sharing the results.

I am not naïve about the difficulties such an approach presents. On the one hand, this is a herculean task
for any researcher. First off, it requires the inclusion of a whole new method of self-observation to any
research; instead of only carrying out interviews, we now need to engage in auto-ethnography, for
example, with all the logistical weight that this entails, from preparing transcripts, through to analysis and
comparison. Being fully honest about ourselves to the research partner without risking losing him/her
also requires a finesse to formulate our thoughts and feelings so as not to hurt their feelings.

On the other hand, this methodology isn’t free of ethical considerations: Isn’t this approach forcing
intimacy with the research partner? Aren’t we bullying him/her into sharing deep emotional traumas
without the necessary trust? Are we making him/her care about our own transformation? As hard as I
think about this, I cannot help but admit: in a certain light, this does feel like forcing ourselves into
someone else’s life, bullying them into friendship. A critical researcher should not force a specific view or
emotion upon the research partner, thus recreating the relations of power that we so try to deconstruct.
While some cases, as when carrying out field research with long-time acquaintances, might offer
themselves to this kind of dialogical exercise; the level of intimacy that it requires may be too high when
just entering a specific context for the first time. Another issue that comes to mind is the extent to which
we may be hogging attention away from the research partner to indulge in self-reflection and self-
representation. Are we using this encounter as a way to deal with our own traumas and class guilt? Are
we forgetting our goal of aiding in the emancipation of our research partner by focusing too much on
ourselves and on our own transformation? There is also the question of long-term affective responsibility:
if, against these odds, we do manage to establish an emotional link with our research partner through
authentic dialogue, how are we to deal with this relationship once the research is over? Where does the
role of researcher end, and the role of friend begin? Indeed, I believe these considerations to be the
strongest case against my proposed framework.
I do not have an answer to these critique points. Rather than a fully fleshed methodology, all I can offer
here is an appeal and some questions to keep in mind: How can I ask my research partner to uncover
him/herself before me, when I remain behind polarised glass? How can I pretend to engage in authentic
dialogue, and thus really share with someone, when I either seek to remove myself from the equation, or
I excuse myself for the person that I am and the position I inhabit? How can I help others deconstruct the
power relations we are part of, without openly examining my own role both in them and outside of them?
How can I touch others, without letting them touch me? If the reader stops to reflect upon these questions
before their next field trip, even if briefly, I will have achieved my goal.

CONCLUSION
In this article, I defended the practice of retrospective reflexivity, i.e. the thinking about how the research
process also transforms the researcher, as an integral part of authentic dialogue and thus of emancipation
within the research process. I first took distance from two current approaches in critical social science,
experiential and participatory research, which almost attempt to remove the researcher from the
investigative process in their Spivakian concern of ‘letting the subaltern speak’. Grounding my analysis on
Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, I rather advocated for a dialogic model that fully acknowledges
and treasures the role of the researcher, not as a possessor of exclusive knowledge or authority, but as a
partner in the process of knowledge construction. The emancipatory objective of critical social research
can only be fulfilled in a process of authentic dialogue, in which researcher and research partner engage
as equal persons in the analysis of the world, and its oppressive conditions. This dialogue requires that
the researcher opens up, both to the reader as well as the research partner, as much (or more) as is being
expected of the research partner. This act of self-uncovering can be accompanied by a self-discovery; in
other words, in our attempt to disclose more information about ourselves in dialogue, we can come to
understand it better. In this exchange, we espouse the principles Freire refers to: love, humility, faith,
hope and critical thinking. Retrospective reflexivity thus becomes crucial to mediating our interaction with
our research partner, the reader and the research itself. I acknowledged potential critiques, including the
complexity of such an exercise, as well as some remaining questions of an ethical nature, which I leave
unaddressed. More than a concrete methodology, I offer a set of questions to bring along to the next field
trip: we, critical researchers, are often cursed by an ethical self-righteousness that should be put to the
test. My final appeal here is to touch, and let ourselves be touched, by the research partner, by the reader,
by the research itself; to put ourselves in the line of fire.
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