These discussions would not be possible without an acknowledgement that collaborating researchers bring to the projects and to the relationships valid understandings of knowledge and of how to generate knowledge. It is with that aim in mind that I propose a strategy for talking about research based on a description of the goal and essential components of the process called research.

A conversation about what research is highlights the inherently political nature of the process of knowledge production. Such discussion can encourage reflection about what research is and recognition that no one group has the monopoly on a definition. Discussing the conception of research can prompt conversations about each researcher's location and relative privilege.

I am offering this strategy as a tool, a starting point in the deconstruction of the notions collaborating researchers bring to projects. This is a strategy that I have used in my work as research friend, engaging practitioners in conversations about what knowledge is, who generates knowledge and how. I have found that by presenting the conception of research as a developing understanding, one which anyone can have a stab at, practitioners have gotten involved in a critical analysis of their understandings of research -- as have I. Many conversations with practitioners and other colleagues have contributed to the strategy I present below.

A strategy for talking about research

In the interviews, many participants referred to the mystification of the role of "the researcher". Academically based researchers behave as if they were the only ones who can do research, some participants argued. The strategy I am proposing consists of detaching the concept of research from how it has been traditionally carried out to uncover the essential elements of the process. The intent is to open up a discussion that will explore underlying assumptions and unexamined practices that play a part in how research is carried out and reflected upon. I am aware that the conception I use for these conversations is a product of my experience both in the academy and in community and that it is most probably biased toward a Western understanding of research.¹⁵

¹⁵ My intent in describing some of the biases I bring to the conception of research is to acknowledge that it is a product of a particular and developing location. As I engage in conversations about conceptions of research with different practitioners, I become more aware of how my own understandings have been shaped by my upbringing in a white middle class urban environment, my formal education in traditional institutions - from a kindergarten teacher to a graduate student. Challenges to my conceptions came mostly from those who had different career and personal paths. I believe that dialoguing with people with "different ways of knowing" is one way of becoming aware of one's way of knowing.