ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the ability to define a phase of consultancy as research will enable a different culture of investigation with concomitant differences in the entitlements and obligations that follow from this framing of purpose. Framing a phase of the work as research allows the task to be explicitly defined as making meaning and constructing learning. The focus in a qualitative research context is, of course, to explore the meaning of social phenomena, not to count instances or make claims about frequencies. The chapter argues that it is important to employ theoretical frames for structuring interpretation in research or one runs the risk of taking up one-dimensional, fragmented and/or naïve positions. The researcher is sensible to the interventive consequences of questions that reframe linear realities systemically, both for interviewee and interviewer. A Reflexive Inquiry commitment in a research language game necessitates linkage between interpretation and action.
