Sistachat as method: centering blackwomen’s relational dialogue in qualitative research

This study introduces Sistachat, a one-on-one, culturally grounded qualitative method rooted in Black Feminist Epistemology. Sistachat centers Blackwomen's vernacular epistemologies and rhetorical strategies—such as silence, metaphor, humor, and tone—as valid and sufficient data and theory-making forms. Five interrelated methodological commitments shape Sistachat—communication dynamics, affirmation, researcher as a collaborator, emotional clarity, and safe counterspace to help Blackwomen theorize in real time through relational practices. Drawing from exemplary conversations with two Blackwomen doctoral students, the findings illustrate how meaning emerges through refusal, co-analysis, and emotional precision. The method resists extractive research norms and redefines rigor as cultural fluency, ethical presence, and relational accountability. Rather than approach emotion as bias or communication as content, Sistachat treats each exchange as epistemological terrain. By naming Blackwomen's ways of knowing as method and theory, this study affirms the necessity of culturally attuned research practices that honor language, care, and presence.