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2.1. Dialogical triangulation as a method
As said already in the general introduction at the beginning of this book, the methods of inquiry that one can use to produce significant results in postmodern qualitative research, are quite diverse, but they all seem to have one factor in common, namely reflection, or the use of some 'mirror' by which we can look at ourselves, and ask "what happens when I share this with other people, what do they think about it, and what can possibly be done next". The methods of such reflection are quite diverse as well. One might even say that ancient hunters who painted their hunt of the day on the wall of their cave were doing this as well, that is put what happened on the wall, look at it, and discuss it with their peers, or with their children, without the danger of getting killed in real action. Today we do not use such walls anymore, let alone in caves, but blackboards, mostly in schools, or blackberries, if not theatre and movies, and even multimedia-performances to 'imagine' the past and possibilities for the future. It also becomes obvious, when we look at mirroring and reflecting in this way, that the language of reflection that is created in this way also offers us the language of looking forward, or to 'make' the future. Thus, reflecting is also a way of doing things together that may have an impact on what will come next, in just the same way as holds for meaning making in general: when we imagine together that this is a table and not a chair, we intent to sit 'at' it, and not 'on' it, and so we 'make' happen what we said it 'is', or 'being' turns into 'becoming'. So, reflection is far from innocent, but a way of inviting the future as well. Artists always knew this, because the way they paint the revolution of the past is definitely not a still-life, but films the scenario for the one to come, or to sustain.
The method that is used here to look back here, and by implication also to look forward, is called dialogical triangulation. Triangulation simply means that other people are actively invoked in the sense-making, and dialogical refers to a style of conversation in which the other is also treated as subject with equal rights to speak as I do. One immediately sees the difference with a traditional modernist survey in which the other is forced to answer in a format that I impose on the other's mind, like when I say: answer this question on a scale from 1 to 10, and I will then interpret what that means, without giving you a chance to explain. This is typically what happens in traditional diagnostic research, namely force such instruments on the speaker, and take the enforced answers as mirror of the other subject's mind. One of the first in psycho-diagnosis to question the validity and usefulness of such an imposed approach was a Dutch psychologist, Hubert Hermans, who launched a whole new tradition called "Dialogical Self Theory" (e.g., Hermans & Kempen, 1993), in which the dialogical aspect of how we live, not only in direct overt conversation with other people, but also in internal conversations with ourselves, is taken as the starting point. This also fits in a constructionist tradition, sometimes called the 'narrative turn', meaning that our cognitions about the world and ourselves is not just a number on a scale, but actually a story we carry with us, and tell again and again to other people and to implicit interlocutors in ourselves. Ken Gergen, to whom we referred already in the general introduction, is often quoted as one of the major protagonists in that movement. Another voice that is also well known in that movement is Michail Bakhtin, a Russian
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