ABSTRACT
In On the Beginning of Social Inquiry, McHugh et al. developed the reflexivity that ethnomethodology showed to be foundational for social life into research as a collaboration inspired by Socratic dialectic, especially as described in the ‘Introduction’. This chapter revisits this dialectic by analysing the relation between the method of collaboration, its mode of production, and the product of that collaboration. While their topic is collaboration, the chapter shows that the taken for granted resource is good troublesome company, a resource developed as a way to respond to the impossible problem of reflexive integrity. Through this resource, the chapter argues that what was begun was a way of showing how responding to impossible questions has an authentic relationship to contingent beginnings, when the inquirer takes seriously the concern with reflexive integrity.
