Download Phenomenology: Researching Lived Experience

Phenomenology:
Researching Lived
Experience
Presentation
By
Assoc Prof (Hon) David Smith
The Challenges of Phenomenology
as a Research Tool




Probably the most challenging of all social science research
methodologies
Probably the least understood of all social science research
methodologies
Phenomenology is not simply the study of a phenomenon (a): all
research studies phenomena but is not phenomenology
To complete phenomenological research effectively you must not
only be a very sensitive, highly aware and competent researcher but
more important someone who has an excellent vocabulary able to
write in engaging ways using rich metaphoric description to convey
to audience the multi layered understandings and interpretations
that your research has uncovered.
Paradigms, Methodologies
and Methods

Paradigm- philosophical framework of assumptions
about the nature of reality (ontology), the nature of
knowledge and knowing and how we prove we know
(epistemology)
 The assumptions of the paradigm shape and provide
parameters for the definition of research problems, the
research question, the selection of methodologies, the
selection of methods of information gathering and
analysis, and what counts as evidence, the interpretation
of findings and drawing conclusions.
 Contentious but broadly recognised are two paradigmsnormative and interpretive: Arts-based/informed
inquiry?
Paradigms, Methodologies
and Methods




Methodologies - distinctive philosophical
approaches/perspectives within each paradigm (eg,
experimental/quasi experimental/ correlationalnormative: case study, historical/ comparative,
ethnography- interpretive)
Methods -information gathering and analysis (eg,
observation, survey, interview:analysis of statistics,
content analysis)
Methods can be common to both paradigms (eg,
observation in experimental and ethnography)
Information/data can be represented in quantitative
and/or qualitative forms.
Phenomenology as a
Methodology

Phenomenology - interpretive paradigm
 Reality - internal to the knower
 Truth- relative, layered, based on personal meaning and
relationship: establishing ‘truth’ is on weight of
‘evidence’- authenticity: verisilimitude
 Knowing and knowledge-experiential & personal
 Purpose - understand how individuals construct sense
and meaning
 Theory - interactively generated and constructed during
the research process: interaction of theory and
information gathered/evidence
 Role of researcher - interested participant : broker
Why Choose
Phenomenology?

Phenomenology is focused on probing and
understanding human experience and the ways
that people find meaning in their experiences
and lives.
 Allows us to research and possibly better
understand some of life’s big questions and
issues - ‘What is it like to be … ?’ ‘How do …
make sense of … ?’
 Provides opportunities to understand issues and
phenomena in ways and at depths that other
research methodologies don’t allow.
Research in the Social
Sciences

All research in the social sciences is:
*Interactive - involves working with and communicating with
other people: subjective interpretation
*Reflexive - what we find out at the end is directly related to
how we set up the research at the beginning: asking
participants to focus on the research question is a direct
intervention in changing the former focus of their thinking
*Influenced by the theories, assumptions and biases of the
researcher and the methodology (ies): subjective
 May have very different outcomes to those intended or
expected - BUT
 Phenomenology is all of these and more!
Four Types of
Phenomenology






Transcendental - Husserl (German) [18591938]
Human consciousness and intentional
awareness : ‘lifeworld’: how individuals
experience the ‘taken-for-granted’ world
Consciousness not experience: ‘essences’
Reductive description: ‘bracket’ out
preconceived ideas and assumptions:
Sought objectivity: no room for emotion
Little opportunity for theorising or interpretation
Four Types of
Phenomenology

Interpretive/ hermeneutic - Heidegger (1920s-1970s)Van Manen (1990)- language & hermeneutics to
understand the nature of ‘being’
* Descriptive interpretations of our experience and how we
construct our sense of BEING in the world within
locations of time and space: ‘essence’ from the verb ‘to
be’- essence= not single or absolute but complex array
* Interpretations by research participants and by researcher
supported by evidence
 Writing constructed in a discourse that is very cognitive,
rational and intellectual : head space (V embodied
being)
Four Types of
Phenomenology
 Existential
- Bergson, Merleau-Ponty,
Sartre & de Beauvoir (France)
* Influenced by Husserl and Heidegger BUT
 Human existence depends on
embodiment: how does the body and
having a body affect human experience
eg, premature menopause; skin grafted
burn patients; organ transplants
Four Types of
Phenomenology

Heuristic
* Personal experience of the researcher
* Reflective and autobiographical
 Researcher, having experienced the
phenomena being researched uses that as the
basis of the research : possibly the beginning of
research that involves others who have shared
the experience.
 Crotty (1996)- nature of SOCIAL experience
Language & Hermeneutics

All types/schools of phenomenology depend on
language- the choice of language and its use in
the construction of rich description
 Van Manen(1990)- language and its use in both
the theory and practice of the interpretation of
texts (hermeneutics) and the interpretive
construction of texts are central to understanding
‘being’ of either the researcher, the reader or
the phenomena being researched.
 Phenomenology’s roots lie in the arts, poetry
and literature
Examples & Wholes

Phenomenology is a science of:
 Examples - provide the basis for descriptions of
how objects/events/ roles/ phenomena are
experienced/made meaning of
AND
 Wholes - meaning making and actions can only
be described,interpreted,explained and
understood within the situational contexts (place,
time & relational) in which they were
constructed.
Phenomenology as Method







Phenomenology is a methodology
Phenomenology is also its method of data gathering, data analysis
and its product (probably only it and art-informed/based inquiry)
Texts (all forms) are the information sources to be analysed
The analysis and creation of text is the research process
The construction of descriptive interpretive text(s) is the product of
the research
Dialectical process-moving from part of the information set to the
whole set and vice versa
Writing a story that includes elements and strategies for readers to
make connections with the writer’s description.
The Task of the
Phenomenologist



To provide an interpretive DESCRIPTION of
the lived experience of some aspect of the
‘lifeworld’
It is not to provide causal explanations,
abstract/theoretical explanations or
interpretive generalizations
Any phenomenological research report has to
use structure, purpose and language
consistent with this task
Doing Phenomenology








The Research Question:
Existential questions
‘What is it like to be (a) ……?
Not conceptual or theoretical questions
Not explanatory/causal questions
Not questions that require answers of patterns
Questions that require interpretive description
Example: ‘What is the experience of being a father to
a disabled son?’ [Ian Brown (2011) ‘The Boy in the
Moon’
Doing Phenomenology








Information Sources:
Any text that reveals as we live/be
Interviews- self & others: multiple, unstructured--> more
structured to probe, question, develop deeper buried
understandings/meanings--> revealing layers of meaning and
experience--> development of layered report texts
‘What?’,’How?’,’Who?’,’How did that feel?’ V ‘Why?’
Observation records
All written text-novels, auto/biographies, diaries,articles, poetry,
essays, cyber text and participants’ written experience accounts
All pictographic text-photos, film/video, paintings, 3D art, song
lyrics, drawings, artefacts
Sound- music
Memories
Doing Phenomenology






Analysing Information Sources:
Content analysis to identify themes
Highly structured analysis -Transcendental
phenomenology (Husserl)-reductive description
bracketing researcher’s preconceived ideas
Unstructured where themes emerge (or don’t
emerge): not only ‘weight’ of evidence: once
mentioned but highly important
Identifying descriptive and figurative language
Carefully recording/tracking the source(s) of
information
Doing Phenomenology



Analysing Information Sources:
Themes are the structural elements of the
experience being investigated:’knots in the
webs of experience around which lived
experience is spun’
Examples:Parenting-’bearing children’ (initial
body relationship of mother and
father);’preparing the child’s world:a place to
become and be’;’living with
children’;’exercising parental responsibility’
Doing Phenomenology





Writing The Report:
No one way/style: purpose & audience (if not for
examination- more freedom)
Examination- political & strategic
Demonstrate critical knowledge/ understanding of
phenomenology as methodology: sources used in the
study
Technical language must be consistent with the
canons/assumptions of the paradigm & methodology
(eg,’participants’ V ‘subjects’: ’representative
sample’!!
Doing Phenomenology









Writing The Report:
Rich descriptive language
Appealing to the senses of the reader
Use of anecdote
Use of figurative language (similes; analogy; personification;
onomatopoeia)
Particularly metaphoric language
Layered description that gradually reveals deeper probing of the
research phenomena towards richer understanding by the writer
and reader
Reawakening echoes of the sensory experience of the reader
Inclusion of other written/visual texts
Doing Phenomenology



No recipe or prescribed format for producing
a phenomenological research report - as long
as the form used is consistent with the
assumptions of its paradigm and
methodology
Elaborate, penetrate, greater detail and
deeper understanding- tasks of the
phenomenologist
Four interrelated characteristics or style
qualities- ‘concreteness’, ‘evocativeness’,
‘tonalism’, ‘intensification’
Concreteness






Permits or denies access to the reader: connections
All phenomenological writing is concrete ie,
‘lifeworlds’
BUT
Need to make the familiar strange because of
‘saturated consciousness’ & superficial experience
Rich thick descriptive language
Examples from everyday experience :anecdotes,
stories
Verbatim quotes/transcript (social phenomenology)
Evocativeness





Closely related to concreteness
Qualities/characteristics that call forth in the
reader images, sounds, smells, colours,
textures and feelings of particular
experiences or phenomena that enable
connections between writer and reader
Vivid, sensual, poetic and figurative language
Careful & thoughtful selection of words
Reversed perspective of the
‘everyday/ordinary’
Tonalism



Related directly to evocativeness
Using words to describe/evoke feelings
Example: ‘Can I be sure that behind the
curtain these lifeless objects are not gazing at
me while crouching and getting ready for an
unexpected leap?’[Langveld describing
discarded objects in an attic in ‘The Secret
Place in the Life of the Child’ (1983)
Intensification




Thickening of language or use of imagery to increasingly reveal
facets of the phenomena
Describe something familiar in unfamiliar metaphorical terms
(eg, room as ‘a sacred garment’)--> reveals facets of
phenomena not before in one’s consciousness
Using words opposite to the phenomena being described (eg,
‘quiet storm’;’menacing embrace’;’abusive love’)
Multiple examples revealing new/different facets: spiral or
concentric circles--> deeper, more complex understanding
Doing Phenomenology







Writing The Report:
Introduction- to phenomena studied, research, sources &
caveats
First chapter-review of methodological literature to locate the
research and identify type of phenomenology employed
Chapters- one evolving story/multiple stories based on key
themes
Final chapter- conclusions & implications
Acknowledging sources- in text (??): footnotes: bibliography.
Drafting and redrafting selecting words and structures to convey
meaning and achieve coherence.
The Phenomenological
Research Community


All phenomenological research reports
become information sources for further
research and researchers
Eg, Brown.I. (2011) ‘The Boy in the
Moon:A Father’s Search for his
Disabled Son’.
Elitism?
 Demands
of phenomenological research
and writing
 Demands of reading a phenomenological
study
 Demands of vocabulary, fluency,
references to sources, hermeneutics and
literary style
 Available to all social researchers?
Key Reference
 Van
Manen.M. (2006) Researching Lived
Experience:Human Science for an Action
Sensitive Pedagogy. London (CA):The
Althouse Press.