In this episode of The Realist Lens, Alejandro is joined by Dr Kerryn O’Rourke, public health researcher, realist evaluator, and Co-Lead of the Realist Research, Evaluation and Learning Initiative at Charles Darwin University, to explore what it really means to do realist work across cultures ethically, methodologically, and epistemologically.

Kerryn shares her journey from nursing and frontline public health practice into realist research, shaped by a long-standing commitment to health equity and social justice. Drawing on her PhD and subsequent evaluation work, she reflects on how realist methodology offered a way to make sense of complex social programmes, particularly those involving vulnerability, power, language, and cultural difference.

The conversation centres on cross-cultural realist interviewing: what happens when theory-testing conversations move across languages, worldviews, and livedrealities. Kerryn unpacks how bicultural collaboration became central to her work, not as a technical add-on, but as a core part of realist inquiry and knowledge co-creation.

Kerryn also shares practical lessons from evaluating maternity and social support programmes with culturally diverse communities, as well as her current work with First Nations communities in Australia.

This is an episode for anyone conducting realist evaluation or research in diverse, multilingual, or inequitable contexts, and for those grappling with how to remain philosophically coherent while working ethically across difference.