ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the theoretical framework of the research on which the book is based, integrating ideas from theorists Mikhail Bakhtin on human relations as dialogue, and Julia Kristeva on the dynamic subject. The author explains how these concepts have shaped her critical, post-structuralist epistemology – her perspective on the nature of knowledge and its production – which in turn has influenced the design and methods for this study. Through stories of fieldwork experiences, ethical issues are addressed, the author reflects on the influence of her subject position, and the research interview is revealed as a site for the dialogical production of meaning. The research methods are described including the participants: medical students in their first clinical year, patients and clinical teachers; the acute hospital context in which stories were told, and how they were gathered through ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews. The selection of stories for closer study is described and key steps in the process of dialogic narrative analysis specified. Further meanings emerge from the assembly of related stories and their juxtaposition. This process can be understood as placing the stories and their narrators in dialogue with each other.
