ABSTRACT
The sixth and last chapter discusses the textualization process, first elaborating on the functions and use of one of the distinctive characteristics of qualitative research – the multivocality of writing; second on the reflexive account. With very few exceptions, the great majority of the texts that present the results of qualitative research are written through the combination of the voice of the researcher with those of the participants. The participants’ voices enter the text principally through the quotations that the researchers choose from their textual corpus. This kind of writing serves four diverse aims: i) to convince the scientific community of the robustness of the research results, ii) to evoke in the reader the colours, the emotions of the field, painting them with words; iii) to give voices to the participants; and iv) to expand the sources of the “reflexive account”. Section 6.1 deals with all these aspects, framing the multivocality practices into Gregory Bateson’s notion of “double description” (Bateson 1936, 1979). The last section of the book tackles the controversial topic of reflexivity (see Lumsden 2019). This issue is discussed with a deliberately low profile, focussing mainly on textualization aspects without any claim of completeness. The reflexive account is defined as an ethical responsibility (Altheide and Johnson 1994: 489) of the researcher-author toward the audience of his/her scientific community.
