ABSTRACT
Conventional wisdom tells us that each one of us is like a small container designed to prevent our "inner essence" from leaking out. We believe that in order to be a proper container, each individual must become a coherent, integrated, singular entity whose clear-cut boundaries define its limits and separate it from other similarly bounded entities. Proponents of this dominant tradition have been so insistent on searching for the essential qualities housed within the individual that they have created two conceptual dilemmas for themselves. The first involves the investigators' failure to pay attention to their own activities; the second involves their failure to attend closely to their subjects' activities. Unfortunately, however, dialogic approaches are not immune from their own kinds of conceptual dilemma. The heart of any dialogic argument is its emphasis on the idea that people's lives are characterized by the ongoing conversations and dialogues they carry out in the course of their everyday activities.
