Laura Dudley Jenkins es profesora de Ciencia Política en la Universidad de Cincinatti (EE. UU.), su trabajo se afilia a estudios asiáticos y estudios de las mujeres, género y sexualidad. Su investigación versa sobre las políticas de justicia social en contextos democráticos culturalmente en países como India, Indonesia, Africa del Sur y EE. UU.

En medio de cierta ambivalencia y poca validación del rigor científico percibido en los trabajos cualitativos, Laura Dudley reivindica no solo sus metodos, sino también la intuición y proceso de reflexividad presentes como fuentes legítimas para avanzar en la reflexión y análisis de los estudios sociales y políticos. Demostrando -a través de su evolución como investigadora- una agudeza analítica y una humildad epistémica en la que convierte a sus sujetos en una especie de coautores.

Partiendo desde una posición como científica de la política comparada/comparativa, Laura transita de la investigación de archivo hacia el método de historias de vida para comprender los impactos de las políticas públicas en la vivencia y significación de las personas desde un abordaje interpretativo.

Sus trabajos iniciales sobre la identidad y los fenómenos de conversión religiosa masiva en poblaciones desaventajadas figuran como antesala para una práctica reflexiva (particularmente del género), que incorpora la producción de saberes, la conciencia sobre su divulgación y las dinámicas de transmisión de conocimiento en el contexto docente.

Los aprendizajes que Laura comparte de forma generosa y su ética de investigación son una bocanada de aire fresco para los enfoques críticos que pretenden algo más que la mera producción de conocimiento.

María Teresa Martínez Trujillo (MM): First of all, thank you for accepting to be part of CONfines. We are interested in speaking with researchers that can share not only good lessons learned through their work, but also share their experience on researching and working in political science specifically, or, social science in a more broader sense. Tell us about your trajectory and the research that you are conducting.

Laura Dudley Jenkins (LD): Sure. A lot of my research (^{Jenkins, 2003}) has been on social justice issues, particularly thinking about the ways that disadvantaged groups in diverse societies might achieve more equitable life experiences. In the context of India, I’ve done work on low-castes, religious minorities, women, and different policies that have been put into place so that these groups may have a fairer shot at advancing in society. I use qualitative methods: primarily archival research, looking at legal cases, legal documents, and bureaucratic processes. For example: what paperwork do individuals have to fill out to take advantage of these policies created for their benefit, and, is it even feasible for these groups to benefit from them? However, my favorite part of the research process is interviewing.

My last book was on religion and politics in India where I did oral histories, which are like long-form interviews. Some of them were done in one very long session, whereas others were held over several days. It’s a way of interviewing where you might not always talk about someone’s entire life from childhood to the present, but sometimes starting from a formative period that you may be interested in. For my work (^{Jenkins, 2019}), I was looking at people who were involved in a mass religious conversion movement in 1956, and some of whom were young converts, who, at the time, were still alive, and therefore I was able to conduct some interviews with them. They had converted from Hinduism to Buddhism as part of an effort to escape their low caste status. So, they were considered untouchables, or part of the Dalits, and they converted to Buddhism altogether in 1956 -about half a million people. I did not interview all half a million people of course- just a handful! But they had interesting stories to tell about the true meaning of their conversion within their life history.

MM: Taking for consideration that it is the meaning of the conversion that is the important part here, and given the fact that what you are collecting is their accounts, you are also collecting their memories, right? How do you manage to interpret those accounts, considering that what they are giving you is not the facts, but rather, mostly their memories (which may not exactly be what happened)?

LD: Yeah, that’s both the complication and the beauty of oral histories. Sometimes people are talking about things that happened… you know… 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 50 years ago even. One thing to think about is that the value of these interviews is not necessarily to get a completely accurate factual account. When you’re interviewing them, you’re learning as much about the political movement at the time and the person’s subsequent experience.

A lot of people were looking back on this conversion, and I asked very open-ended questions. They would sort of say : “this conversion led me on this trajectory to where I am today,” “Because of this conversion I went and got an education,” or “Because of this conversion, I had self-respect.” These kinds of meanings were really important to me to explore in my book because a lot of people still say : “well, the conversion didn’t really do anything for these people because everyone still thinks of them as low caste.” And so, people often asked what the value was, thinking that it really didn’t make a difference. But to the converts, it indeed made a difference. And therein was the importance of getting their voices on the record.

MM: Yeah, at the end that is what matters: the way they signify and re-signify the moment, I think. Talking about religion, and more, religion involving women… Do you feel that there are issues, difficult to talk about or question… specific subjects towards which you feel it is not a good idea to ask questions? And if that’s the case, how do you manage to either shift to these topics or approach a topic which could be difficult to talk about?

LD: I haven’t had a lot of problems with women being reluctant to talk about religion. It is interesting because sometimes people make it more into a conversation and start to ask me about religion. And that makes me more uncomfortable.

They didn’t seem that uncomfortable talking about it. And I think just as a social scientist, you’re like… “wait, I’m not supposed to be sharing spiritual thoughts with people I’m interviewing”. So that’s an interesting phenomenon where discussions with women are more likely to turn into a conversation rather than just an interview.

Whereas, if I’m interviewing men, it may stay more in that interview mode. Other than that, women have been willing to talk about religion. In part, I’m more interested in the lived experience of religion. I’m not a religious studies scholar, so I’m less interested in doctrine or theology, but more so about how their experience as a Buddhist minority in India has impacted their life.

MM: And do they appear able to share this, or any other part of their life, without much trouble?

LD: Yeah, I did have one example. With oral histories, you definitely want to type up a transcript. You often put a lot of it pretty verbatim, as it tends to be chunks of the person’s words and not a ton of my own thoughts on their words. So it’s quite different from interview data that you might see in typical political science.

MT: Yeah, like the structure or something.

LD: Yeah, where it might be a phrase or a sentence. Here you might have blocks of text, which I might frame. But you’re often just letting people say their analysis in their own words… and you’re not just using them as data. They’re participating in the analysis, and that’s what’s important. So I’ll transcribe, translate if necessary, and then I will always send it back to the interviewee, along with my framing, because I want their feedback on: not only if it is okay if I use this part of their interview, but also, how do they feel about the way that I framed this interview, and this chunk of text? And most people have by far been fine with it, but I did have one woman -and it was a beautiful interview, and it really broke my heart- but she was like: “I don’t want it to be included at all.” And in her case, I’m not quite sure what the reason was, but I think she felt like her language wasn’t “fancy enough” for a book…

MM: Was she ashamed somehow?

LD: Somehow, she felt as if maybe she didn’t sound as educated, so she was self-censoring because of that. And you know if I had quoted little bits it might’ve appeared less obvious to her that her language didn’t sound so “fancy”... but that was interesting. I think that this was due in part to the fact that women may feel more insecure about what they’re saying and how their words sound.

MM: Whatever, in any field…

LD: In any field. Like even you recording me today, I’m like, okay, now…

MM: It’s going to be recorded!

LD: How coherent am I sounding?

MM: Yeah, no, that’s true. And that makes me think about something regarding women interviewing women, and even us as women having this conversation now. And you just said, like, I’m not supposed to share my own thoughts about religion. And because there’s also this idea in which- [interruption]. No, I was saying, this idea that you are not supposed to share some of your thoughts; I think there’s also a very patriarchal aspect, you know, that dictates that. What are we supposed to be making as researchers? But the way we conduct research as women, and mostly working with women, can change how to deal with, for one side, the mandate of “rigorous research” and the patterns of “who is who” in academia, as well as who is really a “strong scholar” because “they never let their feelings or their emotions be part of the work.” And on the other side, our talent also, to develop some affection for the people we are working with, and then from there, conduct an even better interview. How do you deal with it?

LD: Yeah, I think I’ve definitely come to see this ability to have rapport with women as a superpower that my male colleagues may not have. Of course, you know, I have all kinds of layers of privilege that can also present a barrier with women I might be interviewing. But, you know, I have been able to have interviews and get answers that I’m sure some of my colleagues would never have been able to, maybe even to secure the interview and have gotten such detailed answers.

I also have been reading a lot about interpretive research methods. I mean, this is no news to anthropologists and people in the humanities, but I think in political science, there’s still this expectation in some graduate training that we are “the objective researcher,” asking the questions to research subjects. And so, with all the new kinds of training -collaborative research and community-based research- they are breaking down this division.

So, I think oral histories are kind of my inroads into that because really, then you’re collaborating or, you know, you’re almost taking second-place… you’re definitely taking kind of a secondary role to the person who really is the oral historian recording their story. And you’re kind of enabling that, amplifying their voice, because you have access to the journals and the presses that they may not. So, yeah, I think as women, it’s, in my experience, an ideal form of research. And it’s also a good way to achieve social justice by just getting more voices on the historical record. Because, as we know, archives are missing a lot of voices, particularly those of women.

MM: Yeah, probably because archives are made by men, who likely decided what is important to have to be part of an archive, right?

LD: Yeah, yeah. So it’s a way to expand that archive. And you know, once you get oral histories into your books, even though it’s perhaps your analysis framing it, those words are there, other people can learn from them and build on that as well.

MM: Have you faced critics or, well, I would say remarks, but sometimes our critics might react with epistemic violence. Each time that you try to, you know, diverse from what political sciences appreciates, by for example talking about your emotions while you are conducting an interview, or if your rapport with this person during the interview gives you much more sense of what is happening in the field that only, you know, like just collecting the information and analyzing the information in an “objective” way. Have you ever faced this type of criticism or even epistemic violence?

LD: I wouldn’t say I’ve experienced epistemic violence, but I think there is a sort of translative work that I need to do with my colleagues, just explaining what it is that I do and why in this way. But luckily for me, there’s been an openness to different kinds of approaches. You know, occasionally I’ve come across someone who’d be like: “what does this have to do with, you know, political science? Like, can you relate it to federalism or something?” You know, like, they’re trying to attach it to some term that they’re familiar with. But yeah, I think that’s rare in my case, luckily, and I hope for my grad students that it will be even rarer, that there will be, you know, more willingness to think about these kinds of methods.

I do think, however, depending on where you publish, you sometimes have to spend more time explaining just the basic premises of interpretive research. So, in some political science journals, you could waste a third of your word count just justifying your approach in order to get into that journal. And so, there’s a tendency to want to just publish in more interpretive journals, but then you’re not pushing the field in some of those key journals. So those are strategic choices I think we need to grapple with, like to what extent you publish in the kinds of journals that recognize the value of this work versus pushing other journals that need a push.

MM: Yeah, and that’s another objective for us as scholars: not only having some findings and trying to understand some specific dynamics, but it’s also I think, moving our own field and saying like, I can go this way for sure, and I’m going to be published and then I don’t have to spend that much time explaining why what I am doing is rigorous and scientific. I can also go for the well-known way of, you know, giving these top journals what they are asking for and that’s it. But then, when and how, are we going to change somehow?

I also appreciate women, especially those scholars who are trying to open more alternatives for us by asserting that there isn’t just one way to publish, collect information, or analyze data.

The other day, we were discussing interviews. You mentioned the importance of discussing how to conduct the interview while also remaining observant of what is happening and interacting with the interviewee to gather content from our fieldwork. Could you elaborate on that? How does it work? What value does holding onto interviewee’s personal information have for research? You mentioned recipes or other items being part of your fieldwork notebook?

LD: Yeah, yeah. I have some notes. I was interviewing a Buddhist woman who was involved in the conversion movement, I believe. And yeah, in the margins of my notes, I wrote this recipe for chapati, which is a round kind of bread, sometimes called roti, sometimes called chapati. And it’s just a basic food that women make a lot of during the day, so that they have them ready for meals. And they’re very simple. It’s just wheat flour and water, but it’s a magical mystery because you have to get them to be soft, and also ideally they puff up when you put them on the hot plate. It’s just, I can never do it. So I’m interviewing this woman, meanwhile, I’m writing down and asking in between my questions about politics and religion like, “okay, wait, how do you get this to puff? Are you sure you didn’t add anything other than water and wheat flour?”

So I have in my notes, this sort of two track conversation going. And when I look back on it, I think these are beautiful field notes, because I can picture where we were, and how much rapport we had, and how confused I was, and how she was trying to teach me. And that’s a very different setting from so many of my interviews with men, which might be in an office, and I’m sitting in there on the other side of a big desk. And it’s just a very different dynamic. So just having that recipe there brings me right back to the setting, which helps me kind of interpret the interview after the fact. It’s interesting too, I think with women, just as a practical note, they’re very busy.

And so, when I come up with research questions, I usually put my important ones at the top, and like, if all else fails, I’ll try to get these three things done. And I find, like with women, I am often interviewing them when they’re doing all these other things, because they’re so busy with all these kinds of tasks and responsibilities. And so I make sure, okay, I got to get my three questions in for these women, because they’ve got to move on to the next thing. And I found in many cases − and this goes for interviews all over the world − the men often are like… they could go on forever. And so I might be able to get through more questions. So I just have to be careful in my data analysis. Like, these women had less time so I have to treat their words with care, because they are specially valuable. And I want to make sure I incorporate as many women’s answers as I can, because I might have tapes upon tapes of men. And then shorter tapes of recordings of women.

MM: But how important is it also, through these notes in the margins, to also recall that those women are doing a lot of things while they are answering a question. And that talks about their own dynamics and how, I suppose, unaccustomed they are to stopping their duties at the same time that they are like, being gentle and giving you information about their own lives. It’s not like they are interrupting their own dynamic, to talk to you and to give you, you know, their experience, right?

That makes me also think about a discussion that we used to have, especially with women, but not only with female scholars, about this relationship we can establish with people who we interview: to what extent are we kind of extractivist here? Like, just taking away information from them, from their stories, from their experiences, from the way they signify and resignify the world with the world and what is happening around them. And then we leave. And when we go, we write something nice with this sophisticated language that they don’t have. And then we publish and then they stay where they were before we went. And we are in, you know, like in tenured track or whatever. But with this feeling that we are just extracting information… Perhaps, there is a kind of a lesson throughout your career, of changing your relationship to or even being conscious of the fact that what we do, most of the time, is just collect information and leave. How has that evolved for you and how do you manage this dynamic, of indeed taking the information, but somehow trying not to extract?

LD: Yeah, I think, a couple of things come to mind. One is that I’ve tried to use, well, again, I’m using the term use, but draw on the women’s language, not just as data to fuel my theory, but to reshape my theory, or really, our theory that is developed through the interview. And then circle back to them with: “this is what’s going to go in this chapter. Does this seem accurate? Are you comfortable? Do you disagree with my argument”? And then, of course, send them the final version. Because sometimes, especially in US academia, these books, these articles, there are paywalls. There’s also, you know, the fact that the books are exorbitant. So just purchasing books, sending them out… people are excited to have the books, you know, with their interview in them. And then, negotiating for open access articles is something that I’ve definitely worked towards more as my career developed. That is, you know, an issue now that there’s a possibility to, you know, get open access kinds of articles that people would have access to in other countries, so that it’s not behind some paywall.

MM: Yeah, it’s interesting that they get excited about having books because sometimes some of them, for instance I am thinking of interviewees that are not even able to read in English, or read at all, right? Or they feel that somehow they are saying something, for example, this woman that decided not to be part of your book because her language was not “sophisticated” enough to feel that she fits within it, it’s also, I imagine, like a great experience. And I could imagine the women sharing with people and families saying, “you see, I am part of a book, right”? Like, I imagine that it’s a way also to change their mind and also their dynamic, isn’t it? And this other thing that I am always concerned about, probably because I come from the Global South and was trained in this very American school, and also in a French school which are quite different, but still colonizers, right?

I always have this question in mind about how to engage with these folks, in a way that is interesting for us but without exoticizing them, like by considering them pieces of something far from us “ intellectuals,” the non-modern in the sense of contemporary. “Those who understand and who have all the tools to understand the social dynamics” or whatever. How to be in the field without exoticizing those who are sharing their lives?

LD: I mean, one thing I’ve often done is, you know… I’m a comparative political scientist, and I don’t do it in all of my publications, but when I come up with a research project, I’m usually thinking comparatively with the United States context. So I’m not thinking, well, this is a weird issue over here, but I see how this is also happening in the US, whether it’s discrimination or a social movement that’s trying to push back against discrimination or a policy that was put in place to try to fight discrimination… So I feel like, by being comparative, which you have to do carefully because it’s of course not the same context, say in India and the US, I’m constantly bringing back for consideration, both for myself and for my students, that we have similar challenges to what’s going on in India, for instance, and this is how they’ve addressed it -in many cases more effectively than we have- and then taking a more critical look at our way. So I think I do that sort of de-exoticizing, I call it de-weirding. I think it’s really important, particularly for teaching. I’ve done a lot of de-weirding of Islam because there’s a lot of misunderstanding, and fear honestly, because of misinformation, of Muslims and Islam in the United States. So some of my agenda in teaching is to make sure that people understand some of the basics of Islam and Muslim life and how varied it is, and to de-exoticize Muslims for my students -some of whom are increasingly Muslims- but for non-Muslim students as well in the United States.

MM: Yeah, and I consider, to achieve the balance in between: to have the value of their training and the privilege of being trained in this part of the world, but at the same time, not to believe that this gives us somehow a sense of superiority, I think, which is kind of risky; if we consider that we are trying to understand what is happening there or here, in the context of our own dynamic.

But now, talking about or taking advantage of this comparative reflex that you have all the time, if you compare the Laura that started her career interviewing -let’s think about the very first interview that you conducted years ago- and the Laura who is collecting interviews for her latest book. What differences do you see?

What kind of lessons could the first Laura share for others who are starting their careers, but also the lessons that the current Laura could give others who are thinking of adopting interviews as one of the most important tools for our job?

LD: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think many things have changed. I was like, you know, a student and really young. And so that shapes the dynamic. So people would really spend time explaining a lot to me.

MM: People that you interviewed?

LD: Yeah, yeah, they’d explain a lot to me. And I would get to sort of thinking that this is irritating. I would think in my head “this is irritating, because I know some of this.”

Like, “yeah, I understand I’ve read about the caste system”. But then they’d explain caste to me, and then, you know, interview after interview, I’m like, “this is really interesting, because now I know how they understand the caste system.” So that was kind of an insight, the value of being seen as ignorant. So that people explain stuff to you is something that I came to value. So that definitely changed. Technology definitely changed. I was dealing with cassette tapes. Today, some of which I still have. And, you know, now we use our iPhones, or there’s things in between as well. But the technology does create some differences in terms of dynamics.

MM: For instance, regarding your cassette tape, because this is going to be, I think, an interview read by some of our students, for whom we may have to make a full explanation on what is a cassette tape, what used to be a cassette tape. But considering cassette tapes, and then these other devices to record, how did they change the dynamic of the interviews?

LD: I mean, I don’t know, they didn´t change it dramatically. But definitely, cassette tapes were more clunky, and they were noisy -you can hear them. So it’s hard to forget they’re there. I also think people now are a little more comfortable just being recorded, just because there’s so much social media and surveillance and technology in our everyday lives. So I think there’s just more comfort with being recorded now than there was when I first started. So some people would more likely decline, and I would just take notes. So now people seem more comfortable with it. So yeah, that is a shift as well. I’d like to think that I’ve gotten better at interviewing in part because of reflecting on exactly what you said, like, how is this going to be useful to the people I’m interviewing? And how can I get more of their voices into my work, which is why when I started, I was doing more informational interviews about a policy. And then I’m shifting more towards oral histories about a person’s life, where I would get insights into how policy affects lived experience. But I’m less interrogating the policy directly, and more so interested in how the lived experience of the policy played out.

MM: And yeah, yeah. Now that you were talking about like, playing a little bit the ignorant here, it’s also somehow to play the foreigner, not only regarding the nationality, but also your distance with the field. I felt something similar being Mexican, conducting interviews with Mexicans, within Mexico, they used to ask me, “did you grow up here in Guadalajara?” I said, “No, I didn’t.” And said, “Let me explain to you how Guadalajara works.” No, it was interesting for me, because it was like thinking that being a foreigner is not only about nationality, it’s about being part or not of this field. And I was definitely not part of the field. So they explained a lot of things to me. But when we consider the foreign condition, regarding nationality, how does it play out for you, how are you seen as a researcher, as a scholar?

Mostly, I am considering how important it is in India, for instance, the color of the skin, and how I remember one of my friends telling me, “when I have some money, I’m going to go through this procedure to make my skin whiter.” Considering how important it still is, such as to make the difference between the caste members, but also the dynamic: how does it work being not only white, but also blonde, and how does that help to conduct the interview, that makes it to where the asymmetry of power is completely evident… how does it work, not only being a foreigner in India, but also looking like one. Do you think that played a role in your interviews?

LD: I think, you know, I’m well aware that I have a privilege if I come to India, and I try to get appointments, for example, if I’m trying to get appointments with a government minister, or maybe a head of an organization, that it probably helped that I’m a foreigner, probably helped that I’m American, that I have a PhD, that I’m coming from a university, and that I’m writing a book… And all of that helps me get interviews with some of these people, I have no doubt. And it could probably also be a benefit in some cases compared to say, an Indian-American, who’s coming to India to interview someone; they might get a different interview with different answers. Or maybe they wouldn’t secure the interview at all because of, you know, some racial hierarchy that might be at play. So yeah, I do think about that a lot. You know, in some instances, I think being an American can also cut different ways. I was doing an interview once in Greece, on a sustainable development issue. And I remember we were actually going door-to-door in a community talking to people about an issue of sustainable development. And I was chatting with a woman at the door with a translator, and her husband started shouting from behind, “stop talking to these Americans!” And so, you know, and that was Greece, which doesn’t ever, I mean… there’s other places where there’d be even more anti-American sentiment, I’m sure. So, there were, you know, interesting dynamics of nationality and race, I think, happening. That we all have to take into account that every interviewer is going to have a position in the situation and that’s going to affect the answers you get, or whether you can even land the interview.

MM: Yeah, even to prepare for the interview, or while you are conducting it, or when you are analyzing it, right? Like, sometimes, that also matters in considering why they answer me with what they answer, right? And just to finish and to let you go, if you had to say, like, three or five do’s and don’ts for people who start, not exactly a career as a scholar, but to start like using interviews as a tool to work with, what would you say are some do’s and don’ts?

LD: Well, I think there’s some really good resources. Like, in the United States, the Oral History Association, so that is really interesting, because there’s a whole ethics of oral history research that kind of falls outside of the IRB human subjects protocols, because oral history is, under US law, excluded from IRB. But it is really important to do it ethically, because it’s personal life stories, right? So, the “do” would be to read the ethical guidelines of the Oral History Association, which is really useful. And it’s not super complicated, but it’s really important. So, you know, make sure you’re engaged in ethical research practices.

And if you’re doing regular interviews, not oral history, that might be more subject to generalizability, then you should go through the regular IRB process. And that way you can protect the people that you’re interviewing. I would say some of the best insights that I’ve learned are kind of asking open-ended questions and letting the conversation go where the person wants to go. And so just being patient, and not necessarily trying to steer it back, because it may seem irrelevant when you’re on your second interview. But by the time you’re on your 13th interview, you might be like, oh, yeah, they keep bringing this up. I’m glad we kept talking about that, because it turns out that’s really important. So that’s where you’re at, the people you’re interviewing are really collaborating with you and shaping the research if you let them by listening. And so that would be, you know, asking open-ended questions, being open to taking the research in different ways, and even throwing out your initial question if it proves to be irrelevant to the people you’re talking with.

MM: And then discover the relevant questions. And the “don’ts”? The things that you say, no, please try not to do, or simply do not.

LD: Yeah. Because I think interviews can be super important at the beginning before you even come up with your question. In the middle when you’re kind of in the thick of the research, and then again, at the end, when you’re coming up with conclusions, I think it’s really important to talk to people at all those phases, if you can, if you can manage to do that.

MM: So do you normally work with a translator or do you conduct the interviews in original dialects?

LD: I’ve done some in English, some in Hindi. And so if I do them in Hindi, I try to record them, if I can, and get help with the translation as well. Because I’m not a native speaker. And particularly for oral histories and political stuff, that nuance is so important. Yes.

MM: Yes, I was asking that just thinking about the process of analysis and restitution, you were talking about translating. But also there’s a huge challenge not to, in French, we say, écrire sans trahir. It’s like writing without distancing someone from whatever they told you. How to do that when translating is already interpreting what they are saying, right? Like to choose one word and not another one as a translation. And I imagine that in all the years you have been also learning about this process and to what extent what you are saying in English is probably not exactly what they said. Do you have some techniques or some remarks or some advice on how to écrire sans trahir?

LD: Yeah. I mean, one example would be I did a focus group of women that met together regularly. So, it was a very comfortable setting. And some of them were speaking English, some were not. And so, I ended up transcribing, attempting to translate and then finding someone who spoke that dialect to also translate. That person also said, “yeah, and I talked to my mom, my dad and my brother, and they all went over it.” So that was interesting. And then I sent it back to the group so that they could go over the things I wanted to quote and make corrections as well. So even though some of the women who were being translated were not fluent in English, it was their close friends in that same community with kind of the same shared interests that went over the translations, and they were friends. So that was, I didn’t make them translate it because that’s a lot of work. But I said, here’s the way we translated what this woman said in that circle where you were all sitting. And so that was how I checked. That was kind of an ideal situation where you could have a very close group who also heard it do the translation. You can’t always have that kind of accountability, but if you can get something close to that, that would be perfect.

MM: Yeah. It’s also difficult, right, to have someone like a native speaker that is perfectly bilingual. It’s always hard. But well, so no, no, that’s okay. We have to stop now. But of course, thank you. Thank you very much. We are going to transcribe… which is another topic we could talk about… we are going to transcribe the interview and of course rework the interview, editing it for preparing this article because it’s much more like an article than like this, like a piece in itself. Of course, we will send you the article in keeping this good practice you had discussed, to ensure you agree with everything.

LD: Thank you. I appreciate that. And now I have more empathy for the people who I interview because it’s good to be on the other side of the tape recorder. Yeah. It kind of puts you on your toes.