ABSTRACT
Conversation is a crucial element of field research. Certainly, the classic field researchers indicated the centrality of conversation in their empirical work. Malinowski (1922) writing in Argonauts of the Western Pacific indicated the importance of talking to natives, so that ethnographic statements could be collected that would ‘grasp the native’s point of view’. Such a position was echoed in the field manual prepared by Vivien Palmer (a member of the Chicago School of sociology). Palmer indicated that: ‘The ability of the objects of social research to converse with each other and with the scientific investigator is so vital a characteristic of the subject matter of the social sciences that it cannot be disregarded in any well rounded study’ (Palmer, 1928, pp. 168-9). Indeed, Palmer continues: ‘The conversations of human beings are an important part of the data of social research, as well as an important part of social research technique’ (Palmer, 1928, p. 169).
