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Dialogic listening: toward an embodied understanding of how to “go on” during fieldwork

Jenny Helin (Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden)

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management

ISSN: 1746-5648

Article publication date: 18 November 2013

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Abstract

Purpose

In recognizing that we have different modes of listening, just as there are different ways of talking, the purpose of this paper is to explore how a greater awareness of listening can be a resource during fieldwork.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses a collaborative study of a family business as a starting point and focusses on a meeting held in the owner family where emotional issues concerning conflicts were discussed. Detailed illustrations from this two-hour meeting show how listening guided all participants, including the author in her role as a researcher.

Findings

Based on Bakhtin's work on dialogue as well as literature on listening the notion of “dialogic listening” is developed. This notion emphasizes four dimensions of listening: relationality and conversations as a shared activity, listening as an active process, the polyphonic nature of listening, and listening as an embodied activity. The paper illustrates how dialogic listening can create a feeling of an “us” where we can “listen into” things. “Listening into” involves a prospective way of exploring which can offer a feeling for that which we bodily “know” but do yet not understand cognitively.

Originality/value

The focus on listening makes it possible to explore new research practices in that it suggests an orientation toward language that does not depart from talk but rather emphasizes how the embodied and intertwined nature of relating to one another can guide and direct us during field studies.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their insightful, helpful, and encouraging comments during the review process. The author would also like to thank the “Hat Order Sisters” for their persistent support and discerning comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Citation

Helin, J. (2013), "Dialogic listening: toward an embodied understanding of how to “go on” during fieldwork", Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 224-241. https://doi.org/10.1108/QROM-05-2012-1066

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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