ENCOUNTER

    The term encounter suggests mutuality.  The interviews which lie as the backbone for the life history project demand mutuality and trust.  These set the stage for the natural progression of face-to-face talk into the more in depth discussion that comprises the encounter.   

    I feel that a truly effective researcher exerts efforts to come to be acquainted with what they deem to be leading among personality and identity features of the interviewee.  Included among these are values, morals, people with whom they associate, ethnicity and various roles they assume within the home, within their immediate  community and within the world at large.  Some of these are culturally and circumstantially relative, but a few  virtually universal features are as follows:

	the individual as parent, spouse, mother, son/daughter
	the individual as an emotional being (someone who feels, hopes and dreams)
	the individual as a thinking being (whether as an academic or simply as someone with valuable ideas)
	the individual as an essential part of a community (intended to include occupation, member as a religious/municipal community)

It is in consideration of these and others that the interviewer establishes a broad range over which to continue gather information.  

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