A dialogical research methodology based on Buber: intersubjectivity in the research interview

Buber's concepts of I-It and I-Thou are well known, yet his understandings of a dialogical process and dialogical knowing are less evident in the literature. This article briefly details a unique Buberian dialogical research methodology, devised for research into psychological and emotional abuse in families. Informed by Buber's premise that dialogue is the source of knowing, this methodology privileges the intersubjectivity between participant and researcher. It is operationalized in methods that highlight the dialogical process within the research interview, from which dialogical knowing may emerge. Analysis of the intersubjective process is based on the conceptualization of five poetic images that recur in Buber's work, as illustrated in the micro-analysis contained in this article. It suggests that a Buberian methodology offers deeper and more nuanced understandings of the subjective experiences of vulnerable participants and of theoretical knowledge about a sensitive topic. Practitioner points Buber's scholarship highlights the ideas of dialogical process and dialogical knowing A Buberian research methodology requires intersubjectivity to be privileged in analysis, before the consideration of subjective experience or theoretical knowledge Intersubjective analysis may be operationalized by a conceptualization of Buber's poetic images Dialogical moments may occur within the research interview, from which dialogical knowing may emerge