Transferability implies describing the context of the research, referring specifically to the content and process of the research. Confirmability is achieved by using triangulation and an audit trail as a way of cross-checking and confirming the findings. The increased depth that is made possible through the use of in-depth interviews has limitations however. The researcher explains that through these moments of recounting and forgetting, she became aware not only of what was being expressed in the stories told by her participants but also what was not being expressed. The stories being told during the interviews were only partial accounts.
Any account is only ever a partial one.
This point, returned to later in the paper, became relevant in the researcher s interpretation of the findings. Frankenberg chose to use a dialogical approach in her interviews as a way of countering the inequitable power dynamics that exist between the interviewer and the interviewee. Furthermore, this approach was intended to be a way of counterbalancing the social context through which discussions of race and racism are subject to taboo, silence and repression. This approach, she argued, also served to democratize the research process by reducing the extent to which she was positioned as an invisible presence, silently judging and evaluating the participants. Through this series of statements, we are reminded that at every stage, from problem definition to data analysis and interpretation, the researcher s subjectivity is implicated in the research process.