ABSTRACT
Arguments exploit the margins between the certainty of explanations and the openness of interpretations. Between them is rhetorical play. At stake in building an argument are the steps that take a debate between a multitude of voices from how questions of what and who can be represented, how representations are created, how they are employed through to questions of what counts as reliable, valid evidence for explanations and theories that can provide the basis for action. The role of an argument is thus to persuade about the truth of some description, proposition, analysis, theory and their combination as an explanation, justification and even the inevitability or fatality of consequences, as summed up in Margaret Thatcher's famous phrase 'There is no alternative'. The writing of research becomes radical when its argumentation is about opening textual spaces for the inclusion of voices by which to create alternative and countervailing ways of being together without losing the uniqueness of voice.
