Dialogic Methodology for Transdisciplinary Practice-Based Research (Research to the Point)

Dialogic methodology is a specific approach to research that invites creative engagement with plural voices and their meanings in lived experience. It draws from the writings of Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin who established an agenda for the study of dialogue.

In Dialogic Methodology for Transdisciplinary Practice-Based Research, E. Jayne White and Mahtab Janfada introduce the premises, processes, and practices of dialogic methodology as a legitimised approach to the transdisciplinary study of practice. Drawing on a series of Bakhtin's original writings and dynamic interviews from dialogic scholars across the globe, the authors advocate approaches to research that invite speculative inquiry and even question the original assertions that oriented the issue in the first place. As White and Janfada set out an alternative pathway for scholars and students to contemplate the relevance of dialogism for their research, they offer an expansive possibility for contemplating issues, paradoxes, or problems across diverse practice contexts. They present their approach as an alternative methodological framework for research in educational contexts, emphasizing the subjectivities that support and/or thwart their effectiveness and purpose. Hence this methodology seeks points of departure from traditional object-subject based research 'on' or 'about' the other, to interdisciplinary investigations that determinedly bring all parties into investigation and inquiry.

Synthesizing the latest research in the field and translating complex ideas into real life practice contexts, this book walks readers through the ins and outs of dialogic methodology, with a view of how to apply the approach to their own research and practice.

E. Jayne White is Professor of Education, specialising in early years scholarship and practice, at the University of Canterbury. She brings dialogic philosophy, pedagogy and methodology together to explore new ways of seeing and talking about becomings in education. She is co-Director of Pedagogies of Possibility (PoP), Editor-in-Chief of the Open Access Brill Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy, and co-Editor of Springer's series: "Policy and Pedagogy with Under-Three year Olds: Cross Disciplinary Insights and Innovations." She has also authored, co-authored, or edited numerous books and journal issues, written over 180 scholarly articles, and translated her work for wider use across social media and other domains.

Mahtab Janfada is a Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia and a former academic at Tehran University, Iran. Having grown up in Persian culture, with deep dialogic grounds, Mahtab keenly translated dialogism and relationality into her teaching, research, being, and living in a diasporic context, which has paved the way for a constant process of becoming and learning at the boundary. Her research on academic literacy and academic identity in a transnational and translingual era of education underscores the significant translation of these dialogic philosophies and methodologies into language and literacy education, published in journals such as Changing English, The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, English in Australia, and Discourse and Educational Philosophy and Theory.