1 A Plea for Reflexivity: The Writing of a Doctoral Dissertation Biography (Draft Version-January 2011) J. Fernando Galindo * Abstract There is still little written about the use of research diaries in relationship to doctoral dissertation writing in the social sciences. This essay describes the writing of a specific type of research diary: a dissertation biography, to account for the process of writing a doctoral dissertation and becoming a researcher. Based on the own dissertation biography of the author this essay discusses the specificity of this type of writing in relationship to other types of reflective diaries, the meanings and functions of dissertation biographies, the reasons for writing a dissertation biography and the added value of writing dissertation biographies for the reflexive agenda. Furthermore it suggests some hints on how to write a dissertation biography. The general argument stated in this essay is that the writing of a doctoral dissertation in the social sciences has a dialectical nature: a tension between product and process that can be partly channeled through the writing of a dissertation biography. Key words: dissertation writing, dissertation biography, international students, reflexive qualitative methods, reflexivity, reflexivity of reflexivity, sociology February 25, 1997 Every research has an internal biography, which does not always appear in the external narrative of a text. A biography is a silent and subterraneous story that runs parallel under the official text. Its origins long precede the latter. A biography is distressing, contradictory, illuminating, and always in struggle in contrast with the logical, coherent and unified profile of the external story. The inside story is made of those unspoken words, feelings, dreams, and biases, those underlying strategies where the harmony of the text originates. Sometimes it announces itself in the text, but always timidly, or marginalized in an appendix. Perhaps there is a relationship of power between the two, perhaps an intrinsic complementary relationship. Without inside stories our external narratives are only boring repetitions of disciplinary power schemes. Without those internal stories, our work is lifeless and runs the risk of falling apart. Nevertheless, the emergence of the inside story would deform, immobilize and even destroy the external narrative. There is always risk involved in bringing together process and product in doing sociological research. But what would life be like if everything were flat, if there were no mountains as there are in my Bolivia? Why do we write a doctoral dissertation? Those of us who endure or survive writing a doctoral dissertation are rarely faced with this question and are most accustomed to hear questions about the subject of our dissertation or the relevance of our work for a given field of study. After I survived fulfilling this obligatory point of academic passage I began asking others and myself that initial question. * Department of Education, Universidad Mayor de San Simón, Plazuela Sucre, Acera Sur. 591-4-429- 1704, Cochabamba, Bolivia. Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Education, University of Bath, England. Please send your comments to: untimely1@hotmail.com