Frictional methodologies: Staying with silence, hesitation, and situated encounters

This article explores how moments of silence, hesitation, and misrecognition can become methodologically generative in participatory research. Drawing on empirical work in the context of health, care, and socio-technical design, and grounded in feminist epistemology, postcolonial critique, and care ethics, we approach methodology not as a fixed set of tools, but as a n ethical and relational practice. Through a dialogical structure, we trace field encounters that unsettled our assumptions about participation, inclusion, and evidence—moments when participants withdraw, resist alignment, or are not legible within the formats research protocols provide. Rather than interpreting such instances as breakdowns, we propose a stance of attunement: a way of staying with epistemic friction, atmospheres, and forms of presence that escapes categorization. We argue that methods must adapt to the needs, rhythms, and expressions of participants—not the other way around—and that what remains unspoken in research is not a gap, but a form of presence. By staying with what remains untranslatable, we contribute to methodological discussions in qualitative research that challenge proceduralism and open space for epistemic elasticity, affective responsiveness, and situated accountability.