Triple I — Inquiry, Interaction, and Interlearning — Strategy for Advancing Cognitive Justice in Interviewing

This article presents the Triple I Strategy—Inquiry, Interaction, and Interlearning—as a methodological proposal rooted in decolonial and participatory approaches to knowledge production. Based on over 15 years of sustained work with Black and Indigenous communities, the strategy reframes interviewing not as a neutral technique for data collection, but as a relational, embodied, and situated process aimed at cognitive justice. Drawing from other epistemologies and relational ontologies, the Triple I Strategy positions interviewing as a flow of mutual engagement that transcends discursive exchange. It integrates artistic, affective, ritual, daily life, and place-based practices to enable sensemaking beyond words. The strategy is grounded in a socio-onto-epistemological perspective that challenges Cartesian binaries, hierarchies of expertise, and extractivist research paradigms. It proposes four iterative nodes: (1) situated inquiry and embodied reflexivity, (2) building relational ties through reciprocity and humility, (3) co-production of knowledge with communities, and (4) creative and meaningful exchange of outcomes. This approach emphasizes the interdependence between human and more-than-human actors, recognizing the territory as an epistemic subject and research as a transformative act. The Triple I Strategy contributes to the field of multimodal and multisensory interviewing by offering a grounded model that values the plurality of knowledge systems, the temporality of processes, and the power of dialogue and interconnection. It is a call to reimagine research as a deeply bioethical, affective, and collective journey, in which listening, being with, and co-creating are central to understanding and honoring other ways of knowing.