The interview protocol consisted of a series of ten questions that guided the conversation with participants. Mostly, these were guiding themes or lines of questioning that I used for each interview. (See Appendix C for a sample protocol). Each interview would start with a brief description of the research topic and the reasons why I decided to focus on it. This introduction served several purposes. First it allowed for a "warm up" period where I tried to build rapport with the interviewee. This connection was essential if I was to gather the participant's thoughts and understandings (Fontana and Frey, 2000). Also, they had a chance, by listening to my description, to better understand what the project was about, its focus and its language. According to Fontana and Frey, "the use of language, particularly the use of specific terms, is important in the creation of 'shared meanings' in which both interviewer and respondent understand the contextual nature of specific referents" (2000, p. 660). Finally, this was an opportunity to present myself as a student, an immigrant, and a mother⁷. In other words, as I introduced the research I also introduced myself.

Different authors have emphasized the importance of authenticity when doing interviews. Interestingly, the literature typically assumes that the researcher has a higher status and concomitantly exercises more power than interviewees (Reinharz, 1992). This was not the case for me. By introducing myself as a doctoral student while interviewing university professors and researchers working in different locations I was actually presenting myself as a subordinate, especially in the case of the university researchers. Indeed, in one case the interviewee interrogated me about my research design and offered advice about how to proceed with my research. As the interviewer and the researcher, however, I exercised power in other ways. I was the one asking the questions, I analysed the data and finally I am the one writing the results and representing the interviewees' words.

Participants

Twelve researchers participated in this study. Defining the criteria to select interviewees proved to be just the first in a series of challenges I faced as I tried to make research design decisions. The distinction of which researchers belonged to this list was not clear-cut. For example, most researchers had gone through graduate school, some taught at universities, others were currently finishing a degree. In the end, the criteria used was that interviewees had to define themselves as researchers and that they were at the time or they had previously been involved in collaborative research in the social sciences involving university-based and non university-based researchers. Based on my experiences in Argentina, I anticipated finding researchers working simultaneously in universities and in community organizations. Instead, I found researchers who worked full-time for one organization. The institutions within which the interviewees worked included unions, grass roots organizations, funding agencies, research agencies, universities and advocacy organizations.

⁷ I was visibly pregnant at the time I conducted the interviews so the topic of motherhood came up quite easily.