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Abstract: This article will explore and provide insight into one researchers’ cognition about a qualitative research interviews. Throughout this work, I offer a variety of concepts and elements that will contribute to this analysis and development.
Keywords: Qualitative research, culture, knowledge, women’s movement, ethnography, Latin American.

There is a question on how to improve qualitative methods of research. I first encountered this question on how to begin a research project and utilize qualitative methods of research and concepts. In general, universities teach undergraduate and graduate students to understand basic concepts of qualitative research in a variety of classes that seem more relevant to social sciences’ courses. However, the individual’s cognition to begin a qualitative research project is disregarded.

Researchers’ analysis of a qualitative research project is generally based on the entire process of data collection, and the methodology and concepts used. However, themes and concepts are often not applicable to the social text.

For this reason, this article offers a framework to acquire an in-depth understanding about a qualitative research project. This framework is built on the two ideas of internal cultural reality and external cultural reality. These two themes will help to examine a historical event of the Feminine Command of El Teniente (FCT). The original research was based on seven interviews, newspapers, articles, books, and isolated interviews about the FCT that took over a radio station in Rancagüa, Chile, before the 1973 Pinochet coup happened. This historical event was one of the most important events of the women’s movement in Chile before the death of former President Allende.

Overall, this article will offer a variety of concepts to examine the cognition of how this qualitative interview was developed. This approach was embraced with the idea that researchers’ cognitions of cultural society were influenced consciously and unconsciously. This implies that these researches are already based on ideologies that have been established by the media or  political agencies.

In terms of conscious influence, this occurs because any form of ideology has already been established or accepted by researchers’ cognitions of the social texts. Unconscious influence occurs because ideology has already been established in the social text without individual consent. Based on these assumptions, this article will explore how ideas and acquired knowledge in a qualitative research project can be jeopardized too. This suggests that people’s choices and consents can be jeopardized by the fact that the premise of a research project was compromised by individual perception.

I begin this article by explaining what is culture. Later, this exploration steps forward to the question of how researchers understand the social text. This research explores new ways of acquiring knowledge and inquiring on new themes to understand culture. Lastly, this study answers how researchers’ capture in-depth life experiences if their cognition is vulnerable to there own perceptions.

From the Latin cultura: what is culture?

The dimension of culture can be based on several rhetorical approaches. Due to the enormous proportions to construct and the enormous degree required to explain culture, I will refer to Michael Karlberg and Marc Howard Ross’ analyses. Karlberg’s book Beyond the Culture of Contest (2004) mentions about Howard Ross’ work on culture and conflict. Ross explains that “culture cannot be understood adequately without reference” to psycho-structural and socio-structural dimensions (Karlberg: 5).

Karlberg explains first that psycho-structural dimension is based on “attitude, values, beliefs and response tendencies [and the socio-structural dimension is based on] political, economic, legal and other social institutions” (Karlberg: 5).

In addition, he explains that “psycho-structural” and “socio-structural” dimensions are two inseparable themes and dependable inscriptions. On one side, “the psycho-structural” dimensions are composed of values that are linked to the values of the “socio-structural” dimension. When a researcher tries to analyze culture from a “socio-structural” view, in some way the “socio-structure” may conflict with the “psycho-structural” dimension. For instance, beyond institutional “conflicts and interests: [capitalism connected with labour,] in a capitalist economy [or] between men and women in a patriarchal society” (Karlberg: 6).

For Karlberg, culture is not a monolithic entity (Karlberg: 5). Another way of putting it is that culture speaks in different ways or different languages. To illustrate, the following social factors are part of a culture and correspond to what Karlberg describes about “psycho-structural” and “socio-structural” dimensions: politics, social law, hunger, death, HIV, globalization, capitalism, ideas, concepts, forms, religion, principles, moral values, policies, and mores. These social factors, with their elements, are part of any culture and several of them may be unknown to people.

In this case, cultural elements such as social cultural rituals, ideologies, gender, power, race, and others aid to transform people’s choices that Karlberg described in the psycho-structural dimension. The cultural elements already embedded in our culture life would change or some of those elements may continue affecting other cultural elements positively or negatively. This closely reflects what Karlberg said—that these two dimensions need to perform in cultural society like two representative ambassadors.

Generally speaking, cultural society is also composed of positive social factors such as language, cooperation, peace, nurturing, just governance, invention, and others. As you may see the world is composed objectively but more so subjectively; thus people can perceive, act, and understand in a society.

In other words, cultural elements aid in transforming individual life in as much as they can have a positive or a negative impact on society and individuals. For most part, cultural elements are changing but also give a warning call to humanity to fix these problems.

With this in mind, many factors in a social and economic development project are ignored when humanity needs aid for the most relevant basic human rights such as the elimination of intolerance and discrimination. Besides, as Claude Levi-Strauss tells us, “the reflection of society is the mental structure of the individual linked to the behavioral actions and institutional levels that they represent” (Tuner: 502). In any giving culture, a society based on cultural elements and codes changes people’s life but also does not question how individuals perceive reality without knowing its source.

In a way, researchers need to conceptualize why the world is in such a crisis or condition today. Not to mention that there is an urgent need to propose and approach new methods of research to mutually understand a society. Besides, cultural elements continue to change and influence the need for researchers to propose new appropriate methods of research to understand cultural reality. Traditionally, obsolete methods utilized in a research project will not contribute to understanding several new cultural elements that a society has developed.

Notably, researchers use various methods or a mix of methods to measure, investigate, or observe cultures. Let us take a look at two common methods of reasoning and thinking— deduction and induction—in a research by Trochim (2006). In general, a deductive reasoning or a top-down approach begins a research study with a theory. Next, the research moves to a specific takes place to confirm and conclude a theory hypothesis to be tested, in which case the observation. In terms of inductive reasoning, a researcher prefers a bottom-up approach. A research project starts from observation, finds some ways to measure results, and then forms a tentative hypothesis to explore the final conclusion of a theory.

Also, researchers observe cultures on macro- and micro-subjective and objective levels of analysis. A research method aids in acquiring knowledge based on ideas that are part of cultural elements. Ideas can be observed and measured as an empirical analysis. This depends on researchers’ perceptions. In general, a research project composed of quantitative observations cannot capture an in-depth understanding of human behavior. Moreover, a qualitative observation could not explain why, how, when, where, and what a research project is about.

For the most part, researchers can utilize various approaches, a mix of methods, or ethnography to test an idea. In terms of ethnography, I will later discuss and answer why the approach of ethnography ignores important factors in conducting a research project. Nevertheless, I argue that overall this type of analysis challenges researchers to understand the political, social, and economic crises that human cultures manifest through the fact that several cultural elements are changing.

For instance, due to individual choices a research interview can become jeopardized. Frequently, researchers disregard the fact that individual agreement and consent are different before a research project takes the first step of implementation.

When I mention about consent, I refer to the idea that participants in a research interview can be influenced by several factors such as political ideology, newspapers’ views, and people’s views about the participants. In short, these factors could influence participants’ choices about what to disclose in the interview.

Initially, in a research project there exist agreements that ensure research subjects understand and agree to the process and content of the research. But what happened with individual consent? Besides, when an idea has become embedded in the cultural reality without knowing its sources, common sense takes place in the subjective cultural world and the cultural elements already there would become to indurate oneself in extreme conflict between other cultural elements.

So, in a research subject, individual’s consent is based on existing social text and ideologies. This means that people can perform actions unconsciously. On the other hand, individuals can also act consciously but not as a trust social text. Denzin (1997) explained that feminist materialists argue that an individual’s knowledge of the subjective world is developed in an “unconscious desire.” That is, reality through ideology and work in the cultural reality is an “unconscious desire.” In addition, the individual experiences are already established by ideology through “culture, television, radio, and others” (Danzin: 59).

Indeed, the construction of ideology is the reflection of the cultural reality. This means that there are no individual choices and individual experiences about life, and no trust discourse beyond women of color. These phenomena may occur in a practical research project. The individual is silent and does not ask, and does not consent to how an idea as an objective becomes natural in the real world. So, participants’ consents are not conventional agreements, but agreements in which total concern about cultural reality disagrees in practice and is disregarded.

Case study: the miners’ wives from El Teniente, Chile

In this section, I will analyze a group of Chilean women who took over a radio station a few months before a coup on September 11, 1973.

In Chile, several newspapers give account of how a group of women framed themselves as the Feminine Command of El Teniente protesting against the government of Salvador Allende. The Feminine Command of El Teniente or FCT mobilized more than 10,000 people to protest against former President Salvador Allende’s policy (1970–1973). The FCT protest was about an annual readjustment salary of the miners. The miners demanded 41 percent cost of living adjustment according to the legislation, Law 17.713, from Allende’s government. This took place at the same time as when General Augusto Pinochet U. took over the State by a military coup (The military coup was orchestrated by several officers called La Junta Militar. Several of them also were related with the Condor Operation, Caravan of Death, and other clandestine operations).

In this research, I wanted to determine whether the survivors of this takeover were participants of the coup or not and if they were apolitical or not.  I also wanted to clarify the main purpose of the takeover that the protest in the radio was for a 41 percent of a yearly readjustment of wages with which Allende disagreed.

Both the takeover and the mobilization of more than 10,000 people from Rancagüa city helped other political and apolitical coalitions to unite and protest against Allende’s policies. It is clear that different coalitions united to protest against the government, given the economic condition and social condition in Chile. As a result, the trade unions in Chile turned their support to help the miners of El Teniente.

The responses of the participants in these interviews were in a range of standard answers, indicating that they were very similar to one another. This indicates that the takeover was a simple movement—miners’ wives helping their husbands. The responses of the interview participants were very similar to the reports from newspapers, magazines, and other public media sources about the miners’ wives of El Teniente, showing that it was an important event of Chile’s history that is not currently recognized by Chilean people, especially in Rancagüa.

Another important point in this research answered the question about the coup and El Teniente conflict. I found that initially there was no connection whatsoever with coup and the miners’ wives protest. The miners’ wives protest was based on the law and it was not political. El Teniente protest was based on a protest by the laborers and trade unions that include miners. Moreover, the trade unions and the laborers in Chile were united in their support among the miners’ wives, which later mobilized a larger protest against the government. At this point, Allende’s government was trapped in a national economic disaster and there was disappointment about his policies.

Furthermore, the trade unions and the miners’ wives of El Teniente had seen the economic and social catastrophes that had led the country into a civil war. However, a coup on September 11, 1973, changed the history of Chile. I cannot help mention that the ideas that the leader syndicates, trade unions, or high power of persuasions in the political arenas in coalitions against Allende’s government, helped to deploy Pinochet forces into a coup rather than a civil war. I can say that also, these groups of hegemonic power would disagree and excuse themselves to avoid a civil war caused by the economic and social crises.

At this point, this research faces several difficulties culturally. The economic status of each of the miners’ wives varies. Also, other miners’ wives played considerable roles against the protest and the political opposition. Other limitations came along with this research. When the research project was conducted in 2003, the radio station was not there; some of the people were not living in town, died, or had disappeared during Pinochet’s regime. Some of the women who took over the radio station refused to be interviewed. These obstacles conflicted with my aim of explaining what happened during the takeover and aftermath, and made it very difficult to complete this investigation.

Now these research interviews were jeopardized by the fact that this group of women did not consent as previously explained, but they signed an agreement to explain what happened in the radio station. Second, from the beginning of the research I assumed, based on the media and people interviews, that the FCT did not have any political and social relation with Pinochet’s rise to power. As a researcher I was influenced also by several facts that could build my perception about this group of women. As Denzin (1997) referred to Bruner’s (1986) work, the writer’s cognition to explain the social-text is not always what is represented and it is not always what the writer meant to say about cultural reality. He also mentions that the development of individual knowledge is based on unconscious desire of this subjective cultural world.

In fact, this research concluded that the majority of the Chileans believed the opposite. Some of the factors that influenced some Chilean beliefs about this rhetoric were the political and cultural perceptions that influenced and determined people’s choices.

As a result, the FCT came to the attention of the Chilean society. In particular, what did people say about them? This implies that Chilean people portrayed the FCT for their actions made before Salvador Allende died. Under these circumstances, the FCT’s cultural position was seen as unfair through Chilean perceptions. It was clear that several people in the interviews mention this because of their political influence or affiliation to the party.

After reading several newspapers and magazines, I assumed that the FCT did not have any relations with Pinochet’s rise to power, but somehow numerous Chileans believed the opposite. At this point, I concluded that the newspaper perceptions could be misleading about what really happened in the radio station and what the FCT’s primary purpose of the takeover was. In short, it does not matter how researchers can move variables, modify questions, count data, and even persist about a specific hypothesis. This implies the premises of my research had been jeopardized by the fact that ideas can compromise people perceptions.

Subjective/Objective/Culture

This section will explain research concepts in response to the researcher’s cognition related to these research interviews. I have proposed an alternate understanding that directly addresses the FCT’s interviews. In this section, I will introduce the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity as a base to describe the FCT movement. Bunge (1983) said that these two approaches do not need separation. Each one devotes oneself to the other and needs a relationship to one another to describe the subjective world (Bunge: 98).

For most part, researchers perceive the subjective world by theoretical assumptions, in which qualitative methods of research are still problematic in understanding cultural reality. Similarly, in the FCT’s interviews, ideas may become jeopardized by researchers’ cognitions about the subjective cultural reality. Several factors can influence a researcher’s decisions such as newspapers, television, or people’s opinions.

I found that in a subject analysis, qualitative interviews allow, most of the time, sharing personal meaning in a given opportunity. However, can researchers have an in-depth qualitative interview? Denzin explained that ideologies are already established in the cultural reality that creates its own resistance and domination in the subjective cultural hegemony. So, this qualitative interview can no longer be sustained as a real subject in the cultural reality.

In other words, Driver (2007) explained that “subjectivism” can be tolerant for some individuals, but for others it is different (2007:14). Say, for instance, that some Chileans sided with La Junta de Gobierno de Chile’s coup (September 11, 1973); they believed that this historical event would stop the economic crisis and stop communism from spreading throughout the nation which would ultimately drive the country into a civil war. But for other people he was just a murderer. Indeed, it was estimated by the Corporación de Promoción y Defensa de los Derechos that more than 80,000 Chilean people were subjected to “physical and psychological, electrocution, sexual violence, battery, forced intake of drugs, burning, immersion in liquids, disappearances, murders, political prisoners, internal exile to distant and isolated places, harassments, and threats” CODEPU: 2007).

These actions that conflict cultural reality are totally wrong. Driver (2007) stated that cultural relativism seemed to favor this type of actions because cultural reality gave many things such as power. In other words, this giving power enables people to determinate and perceive a “truth-value” and what relativists believe as “affirmation” (Driver: 14).

I disagree with what relativists believe in, which is what positivists disagree with. Overall, relativism in this context of “truth-value” is not only the response but also how regulate the understanding about cultural reality. Cultural society is also built by morals and values, which are very hard to prove and respond to. However, I would like to end this section with this thought:

Internal cultural reality (ICR) and external cultural reality (ECR)

The previous two sections presented an analysis of the FCT movement focusing on two concepts previously stressed in this qualitative research. The value of the image of these concepts was analyzed through subjective and objective methods in a general study of these research interviews. However, it was partially influenced by people’s stereotypes. This result denotes a failure of decision making from the researcher and the subjects.  However, this failure also leads me to utilize further two themes in this work : internal cultural reality (ICR) and external cultural reality (ECR). The use of these two themes helps me to deeply analyze from “socio-structural and psycho-structural” dimensions of this qualitative research.

First, in terms of ICR, each individual has a culture embedded in himself/herself that is connected with external cultural society. To illustrate, my internal cultural reality will be my family, which consists of my mother, father, and sisters. However, each individual in my family also has an internal cultural reality. Moreover, internal culture also focuses on the individual, my identity, or who I am, which defines me as a whole material and a nonmaterial reality. ICR explains that an individual cultural quality can be significant for his/her individuality of life, especially when an individual manifests his/her own faculties that he/she hold. Also, there are six elements that ICR and ECR utilize when an idea or a topic of interest in a research study develops. Here I am referring to inner vision; internal and external faculties; individuality connected with a person’s contribution; moral decisions demonstrated in individuals’ behaviors or decisions; searching for felicity, peace, security, contentment, and happiness, and timelessness.

Second, based on the nature of an idea, in terms of ECR, individuals, groups, or nations perform in a cultural society in different ways through an ideology, environment, or economy. One person can perceive social life in different forms than others that makes him/her knowledgeable in understanding their cultural life. However, nothing is absolute because the acquisition of knowledge can be perceived erroneously based on the subjective world.

The framework of internal cultural reality
Generally speaking, the work of ICR was established through the work of several philosophers; in some way I concur with the concepts I present in this section. Also, ICR was based on several qualitative research projects, which enhanced my interest in six themes before engaging in a grassroots research project. Furthermore, these will aid in conceptualizing with the participants a deep ICR analysis moving forward to develop necessary tools to build a research project: (a) inner vision of the research; (b) individual faculties that involve cultural elements; (c) human resources: developing individual capacities; (d) individuality: understanding individual cultures and history that determine values, capacities, and faculties; (e) ethics of the research or investigation and their own fundamental inner moral decisions; (f) a high degree of good judgment and collaboration between parties that are involved in a research project; (g) finally, the capacity to step forward in the research project to develop long-lasting commitment or timelessness.

Inner vision of the research project: I describe the term “inner vision” as the direct perception of truth or fact independent of any reasoning process. Inner vision involves immediate apprehension of truth or facts. In a society, many of us experience inner vision and use it to understand and comprehend occurrences in our daily lives. Inner vision is an ability (otherwise called a virtue) that understands the meaning of a situation, material circumstance, or problem that goes beyond the reasoning process. It is a pure, untaught, and noninferential knowledge.

The study of inner vision that is found inherently in the individual contributes to the resolution of problems and conflicts. The primary fundamental base of a research project is for the project leader to utilize his/her capacity to intuitively know the current needs of the people, and support that by talking with the people to find out what they think.

A research project takes time to be performed in an honest capacity. This capacity or virtue is one of the most important building blocks in having a clear understanding and purpose of good intention to develop an honest research project.

Individual faculties that involve cultural elements: it is very important to remember that the source of all actions is thought. Thought has a complex relationship with the external and the internal faculties. External faculties are hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching; and the five internal faculties are imagination, thoughts, comprehension, memory, and the common faculty. The intermediary between external and internal faculties is the common faculty that aids in transmitting individual perceptions.

Thus, internal and external faculties are very important in comprehending a research project. In a research project, solid endowment helps in comprehending important meaning and understanding the vision of the project as well as final conclusions. There are several inherent faculties in the individual who performs in the external cultural reality. The capacity to manage and organize a research project also needs special skills to fulfill needs.

An example is the effective distribution of resources for school meals in a research project in South America. There are several schools in South America where daily meals do not reach children. It is because several  local and national governments do not properly implement the school meal system, and several of them do not take into account children’s well-being.

In other words, focusing on justice in a research project may help to actualize the principle of justice. Afterward, researchers should explore and practice all their faculties to develop a research project to adequately address justice related to the rights of the people and their needs.

Develop individual capacities: individuality is not comparable to a mere aspect of the personality or daily habits. It is more an actor of development that determines the nature of the person’s contribution to society, and the formation of their spiritual differences, depending on which and how many measures influence their development in life. It is not possible to measure the level of maturity to which any given person will attain.

Several individuals in a research project have capacities in different areas that are as much empirical as theoretical. It is necessary in a research project to identify these capacities with the members.

Individuality, understanding individual cultures and history that determine values, capacities, and faculties: in the internal cultural reality, the individual registers each action as a series of moral decisions. The objectives of this world include the acquisition and the application of inner faculties and other human perfections that demonstrate high relation in the cultural reality. To illustrate, consider justice and mercy. We can compare the acquisition of these perfections to a daily spiritual battle whose outcome depends upon our actions that in turn are based upon our moral decisions. Although we may have an understanding or perspective of an experience or the consequences of our behavior, it is often beyond our understanding that every behavior or decision becomes part of our daily or lifelong habits.

We must always act in agreement with our principles. It is like a mirror that must be maintained clean and clear to reflect the light of principles. On the other hand, the mirror can be covered beneath a veil of self if we act in a way that causes disintegration instead of integration in society. In other words, inner faculties will not be able to reflect the light of principles because our individuality is sullied by actions that have caused disintegration in society rather than integration.

Ethics of research and fundamental inner moral decisions in a research or investigation: how many of us are looking for happiness in our lives?  Humankind has been searching for peace, security, contentment, and happiness throughout its history. People look for fulfillment in material security, fame, and power. When they do not find it there, they resort to the use of artificial ways to stimulate themselves or to dull their pain by abusing such things as food, drugs, and alcohol. They can also abuse other people with hatred and others. We have been choosing paths that do not fulfill our individual needs and thus fail to find peace and human rights.

A high degree of good spirit and participation between parties that involve research or investigation and timelessness: another great capacity in a research project is to maintain a gradual development of the project but not limit its vision, called timelessness. The comprehension of ideas in a research project would generate confidence and clarity in the primary actions. This would aid in developing integrative patterns and social roles.

Ideas can be jeopardized

This section explains how an idea in a research project can become problematic. Are researchers avoiding the grassroots of an idea? How is an idea born? What are the ethical responsibilities of the researchers and the subjects in approaching appropriate techniques in a research project?

I affirm that a hypothesis is composed of ideas, but how do I know that an idea will not compromise or jeopardize a research project? If I deducted that a hypothesis in a research project was erroneous, then my premise was erroneous too. These are some of the questions I will try to argue through this section.

First, in a given research project or investigation, researchers inspire themselves from various sources. In general, researchers question a hypothesis about any topic, but often these assumptions end in simple conjectures and presumptions. I have observed that when I question myself about a specific hypothesis it leads me to guess the answer with anticipation. This point of view seems to oppose what Trochim’s explains about “inductive and deductive” dimensions, two common methods of reasoning and thinking. It is also contrary to that of John Allen, who argues that these types of “error and guesswork” are just speculative signs of lies generated by an idea (Pryke, Rose and Whatmore: 12).

Indeed, the source where ideas are generated can be interpretive for Allen’s single suppositions. The way in which researchers are inspired could give any direction to a research project. So the origin of an idea and individual inspiration can challenge the whole project perspective (Pryke, Rose and Whatmore: 13).

With this in mind, researchers may agree with me that ideas also have collective knowledge, in which the grassroots of an idea are multiplied by new knowledge and more suitable solutions come along in the research. In some part, this can be true. However, acquiring knowledge can be perceived erroneously as well. If an idea begins to develop, this means knowledge through a research project, an obvious conclusion, can end erroneously too. In the end, the deductive hypothesis would reflect subjective human understanding. So, in the cultural reality individual perceptions can become jeopardized as well.

For instance, the FCT research interviews did not entirely support the promise of the hypothesis. I can say that more than 50 percent of the interviews and research information collected conveyed the perception that this group of women had some kind of political relation with the coup planned in Chile. However, several people believed differently from this opinion or perception. Moreover, the Chilean media and the international media played other roles of interpretation on what the primary purpose of the takeover was and the researchers’ perception as well. On the whole, these assumptions describe that a social sector was not happy about the takeover.

In one way, this gave a sense of power in the people’s rhetoric, justifying that the coup plot was wrong. This also delineated distrust and an egocentric approach between left and right parties. This means that both sectors disagreed; one sector said that the coup plot was the right thing to do and justified their opinion with the assumption that without a coup, civil war would prevail. The other sector rejected this assumption and said that the coup only brought mass killing and that supporting the coup did not justify 18 years of Pinochet’s regime.

Let us consider that these assumptions are based on people stereotypes. So to what degree can qualitative research contribute to an honest project, considering how researchers create this social text? My criticism about the construction of social text keeps my perception in the argument that there are other factors that can influence a research project to capture an in-depth life experience.

Denzin’s book Interpretive Ethnography explains that researchers cannot capture an in-depth life experience. He mentioned how complicated it can be for researchers to evaluate and interpret a qualitative research project from particular facts such as the principles, the opinions, and the conclusions of the research. He argues that researchers’ life experience can be irrelevant because it was created in the social text from the writers or the researchers themselves. The second assumption of Denzin is that evaluation and interpretation in qualitative research can be irrelevant, and finally based on the two assumptions the third can be jeopardized,  which questions, “is it possible to effect change in the world, if society is only and always a text?” (Denzin: 3–4).

In some way, poststructuralism understands that it is not language but the speech that is the mirror of life experiences. Bruner (1986) said that there is a difference between the cultural reality (experience) and the expressions of the social text from the writers or researchers. The subjective representation of life experience cannot be “what was meant or said,” but there are different social text from the writers’ or researchers’ representations and different experiences. So “description becomes inscription [and] inscription becomes evocative representation [of that description]”. In short, the writer or researcher is presenting the subject’s experiences (Denzin: 5).

Social sciences challenge this view in a way, in that poststructuralism argues social text from researchers or writers based on post-positivist justified by epistemological validity of the social text from a writer (Denzin: 6).

In general, ethnographers focus on empirical generalization based on constructivism, in which individual perceptions of knowledge are part of culture reality. Also, it is based on relativism in which the elements that a society is composed are relevant to the culture and history. This means that relativism views deny absolute moral values as well as the truth because relativism sees that there is no absolute truth.

Idea and acquisition of knowledge in a cultural society

Ignoring how we acquire knowledge is unlike or uncommon in our life and looks at the process as well. In a society, people participate in interactions and exchanges, practical reasons in which thoughts are an integral part of this process to search for things that are present in our understanding or that are already known.

Basically in a given research project I question what is knowledge and how people acquire it. Before I started this qualitative research interview, I asked myself: what am I going to learn? Epistemologically speaking, this question is very serious in a social and economic development project. Bunge (1993) questions “how is knowledge possible?” (Bunge: 92-94). He presents three basic responses to this: “the naïve realism, empiricism, and idealism”.

Basically, Bunge’s explains the term “naïve realism” as the mind having no interaction with the sense of reasoning. Second, within empiricism the mind captures all the expressions from our senses through our individual perception and ideas become part of our understanding about the cultural reality. Similarly John Locke, a theorist, states that every man has or acquires ideas in determinate ways and degrees through the mind in different circumstances. He also said that the mind is like a white paper without characters and ideas, unknowing of its purpose, but after an idea comes to be part of our life, it is knowledge (Nidditch 1973).

Finally, within idealism the mind takes individual ideas that are pre-established and balances between the cultural reality and the mind (Bunge 94). So how is an idea born and where does it come from before it is conceived in the mind? Is it part of us or something else? Somehow, somebody consents to ideas that are parts of a whole. That is, an idea is preconceived and it is part of a whole, natural and non-natural. People discover an idea in determinate ways and degrees. After being discovered, the individual “subjectivity” of this idea would become “objectivity” in the cultural reality.

Bunge concluded that those schools failed because empiricism explains only abstract ideas. Second, naïve realism is not creative. It focuses more on mathematical theories; that is why it failed. Third, idealism fails as well because cultural reality is devalued by any social experience. In fact, idealism and empiricism avoid total recognition of the social cognition and the brain detachment from the cultural reality (Bunge: 94).

On the other hand, Immanuel Kant advanced that knowledge has an active nature, in which an individual goes outside and purposefully grasps the idea of a designated subject. In the same way, this is true; an idea expressed in a research project is primarily the source of understanding in the mind. Before an idea was designated in the internal cultural reality, the idea was there. So, time, norms, and regulations are present when an idea is captured from the internal cultural reality. Because when individual faculties are in place this gives a sense of free will about what to believe and see in the society.

John Locke defined knowledge based on experience. He sees that knowledge is like a container in which ideas have collective sensations from our senses or “sensible qualities.” There are two classes of acquisition of knowledge: “external perception” and “internal perception.” So this idea would create understanding with other ideas. Perception in the external cultural reality is obtained by the senses or sensation, and the internal perception operates in the external cultural reality that Locke called “reflection.”

To illustrate, imagine a person who learns how to drive. He/she at first externally perceived the instructions of an expert through the senses of sight, sound, and touch and then internally by reflecting upon the idea, the process of driving.

For the most part, these two philosophers presented a clear explanation about how to acquire an idea and knowledge. Nevertheless, I would like to present in the following graphic a different view of how to define a natural pattern evident in the acquisition of knowledge in which ICR and ECR take place

The ascending spiral presented here on the left side demonstrates “external cultural reality” defined by the physical senses, such as sight, sound, and touch. Moreover, this describes all the elements that this cultural world is composed of. On the right side, the spiral demonstrates “internal cultural reality,” the quality of reflection upon the first experience obtained through the physical senses. Ultimately, the individual who ascends the spiral not only acquires certain knowledge, but also multiplies it through the levels of S1, S2, S3, S4, (S=step) successively.

Knowledge in practice

According to Abdu’l-Bahá, in the study of a specific field, researchers need a whole application of the knowledge that was acquired in a research project. It is not enough to write or research for a text if researchers cannot practice or fulfill people’s needs. Indeed, it is necessary for researchers to apply this knowledge in ways that will resolve people’s difficulties.

Abdu’l-Baha, Abdu’l-Baha in London, p. 54

Erroneous conditions to acquire knowledge

Is an individual vulnerable to his own perceptions? Or is an individual vulnerable to his own knowledge? Can an individual define true knowledge? In essence, I can explain exactly some of the facts to define true knowledge. For instance, today, who is the President of the United States the America? The answer is George W. Bush. However, some people may not know who the President is. If I visited the Brazilian Amazon, many of the indigenous people do not have any idea who George W. Bush is and it may seem irrelevant to their perception in their cultural reality. Feldman (2003) explained in the first chapter of his book two conditions to understand knowledge: truth and belief. He furthered that knowledge needed the condition of truth to believe and understand knowledge.

However, I argue that the condition of truth can be questionable by the fact that acquired knowledge is not always truth. To believe what is truth may not be easy to define. People’s perceptions can change this condition because some people acquiring knowledge can be different from others. So, the condition of truth in the cultural reality can be truth for some of us, but not for all.

Bunge clearly established that the way in which we understand knowledge can fail. However, these three components did not determine a whole natural way to understand knowledge. Also, John Locke proposed that acquiring knowledge is based on experiences. He presents two terms to acquire ideas: “external perception” and “internal perception”. These two conditions will determine people’s knowledge and also determine how ideas can be perceived erroneously. In the same way, Kant said that acquiring knowledge is like an active function in which people go outside to purposefully capture ideas.

To sum up, Bunge, Kant, and Locke mention several ideas that can be acquired beyond their understanding of perceptions. I also include another author, philosopher, eminent spiritual leader, and thinker who provides a clear view of what this section is trying to explain. During his visit to Europe, he revolutionized the way in which the rest of philosophers and thinkers think about how to acquire knowledge. I am talking about Abdu’l-Bahá. He proposed to philosophers four primary ways to facilitate the acquisition of human knowledge: “sensory perception,” “reason,” “tradition,” and “inspiration.” The following four themes explain primary ways to acquire knowledge and how they may remain erroneous in the cultural reality. The following four themes would agree in part with Locke, Kant, and Bunge. After reading these four approaches to acquire knowledge, I conclude the following four simple explanations.

Sensory perception: individuals can perceive things in their culture that have an existence of truth or not existing that can be considered an illusion.

To illustrate, as a young boy, from 1979 to 1982 I found myself not believing what the Junta Militar (Military Board) said on the TV and the streets about Chile’s future and how communism and socialism were the worst shame for the country. I remember that every night I saw friends gather on the corner of my aunt (tía) Ruby’s house to protest against military troops. The two parties always had confrontations. On one side, the military troops shot several times from the street through the protesters. In the meantime, some of my younger friends prepared strong resistance against them. Typically they threw rocks and burned tires in the streets to stop the fascists from coming. This situation happened every night. During the day, some of the newspapers in town selected by the government talked about the situations. They explained what happened that night when the military tried to stop the protesters – communists. Several of the news statements were beginning to help Pinochet’s regime by justifying the mass of wounded and dead people on the streets.

As you see, some of us believed this situation as truthful “perception.” However, I can say what I saw, but if another person tried to understand and see what happened that night without being there, he/she may imagine the situation through the account of the newspaper in his/her mind (memory perception). It could turn out that he/she obtained an untruthful perception of the situation presented.

Reason: reason enables the individual to acquire true or false knowledge, critically analyze it from a constructive or destructive point of view, and later form conclusions and new opinions. An example of this process occurs at the time of elections. Voters arrive at the voting polls and are besieged by a great number of pamphlets describing the background and proposals of the candidates. The voter must receive this knowledge, analyze it, and be able to make firm decisions about who would occupy each office based upon their newly formed opinions. All these processes take place by reason. However, at the same time, reason fails to be perfect.  New knowledge through reason will alter his/her conclusions. To illustrate, before 1492 most of the European civilization denied that a second great land mass existed on the other side of the world. Nevertheless, the arrival of Christopher Columbus, an explorer of Queen Isabel of Spain, at North America contributed new knowledge and human understanding and the European population was newly changed.

In conclusion, the process of acquiring knowledge through investigation and the simultaneous evolution of human reason can be misleading, because a fact that is true today, may be false tomorrow, or vice versa.

Tradition: tradition can direct future actions of society, but it does not permit the discovery of new solutions. It is perceived as an effective way of solving problems, but often when new problems come along, it is ineffective and the problems require new solutions.

To illustrate, I would like to refer here to the group of women or FCT (Case study: the miners’ wives from el Teniente Chile). After 30 years, I found out that during this process of collecting knowledge about this historical event, information from the media and other sources was often very unreliable. Also, individual interpretation and perception of a research project can also become problematic.

Inspiration: the individual can be inspired by ideas that may have a negative or a positive impact on society. Inspiration can have positive, integrating effects or negative, disintegrating effects on society.

For instance, the inspiration of people such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, although at first appearing to be destructive, affected the social order in a positive way. In addition, negative effects prompted by the inspiration of people such as Hitler and Pinochet produced the destruction of social order.

In summary, traditional ways of acquiring knowledge are not perfect. Thus, it is important to investigate and redefine new avenues of acquiring knowledge: specifically the intuitive process that many philosophers and scientists utilize in their profession.

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