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INTRODUCTION

This monograph is intended to provide an insight into the experience of what it is like to do phenomenological research. The contributors to this monograph have all come to and practised phenomenology in distinctive and manifold ways. Yet the monograph is a collaborative effort, being the product of a series of meetings over coffee and hot chocolate in which we discovered from each other what phenomenology might be about. As such, it is hoped that the reader will find affinities in the work presented here, affinities that link these stories to the question of phenomenology and also to the reader themselves. Moreover, it is hoped that the question of what it is like to do phenomenology, like the deeper question of what phenomenology is, will be one that is not finalised for the reader, as if these are the only stories to be told. The intention is rather that the question of phenomenology is opened up as a set of ideas for further questioning and investigation. The authors intend to stimulate questions rather than to answer them, while also providing the reader with a taste for the diversity of interpretations and applications of phenomenological research. Contemporary philosophers such as Jacques Derrida (1999, p. 71) describe phenomenology as providing a profound lesson for all inquiry, in the sense that it recognises the irreducible difference of the other. If we want to understand that which goes beyond what we know already, then we need to be receptive to that difference. But how is this possible? How is it that understanding can transcend individual, social, cultural and historical bounds? Or, can it? These are the kind of philosophical problems that underpin phenomenological research. As for what phenomenology is, definitions abound, and in line with our aims in this monograph we do not wish to give ascendancy to any particular candidate. However, there are, of course, some accounts of what phenomenology is that we find more agreeable than others. Henley Pollio and his co-authors, for example, describe phenomenology as:

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a determinate method of inquiry [directed toward] attaining a rigorous and significant description of the world of everyday human experience as it is lived and described by specific individuals in specific circumstances (Pollio et al., 1997, p. 28). But not all phenomenological research takes human subjects as its object of inquiry. Readers will notice that while much of the work presented here does do this, this is not always the case. In beginning to understand what a broader conception of phenomenological inquiry might be, one need look no further than the etymology of the word itself. Phenomenology is a Greek word combining the words phenomenon and logos to mean the study of phenomena. There is no limit to the kinds of phenomena that phenomenology can take as its subject matter. Although the intention is to leave open the question of what phenomenology is, areas of commonality are apparent in the work of the practitioners presented. Of these, the wonder of opening up to a subject of inquiry is central. Also central is the rigour involved in phenomenology: its attentiveness to particularity and recognition, as well as problematisation of the effect of the researcher in the research process. The necessity of adopting a critical spirit is essential when following a traditional approach to phenomenology in that our manner of seeing the world, and the assumptions we make, must be called into question. Geertz (1965, p. 114) reminds us that our ideas, our values, our acts, even our emotions are, like our nervous system, cultural products. These products can act as a barrier or screen from the everyday world and may well inhibit what sense is made of the experience. Readers will find various points of convergence and departure in the authors contributions. On the former, recognition is foregrounded of an essential difference of the other from the self, while placing ultimate value on entering as closely as possible the life-world or meaning of the other. The other, as research participant, may be understood as another person, or, more broadly, a cultural or historical textin the broadest possible sense of the term. There is also convergence amongst contributors who have undertaken research involving human subjects. These authors present the interpretation of the world of everyday experience as a response to (the researchers) specific questions and, following from that, the available evidence. Divergence or departure exists among the authors contributions, firstly, in the extent to which the subject matter of the authors research is based on empirical investigations. In the work of Robyn

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Barnacle presented in the first chapter, for example, the research remains at the theoretical level, without empirical research being undertaken. Secondly, if techniques of qualitative data analysis are used, variation will be noticed in the extent to which themes within the participants experience or types of participants are articulated: this has implications for the way that the individuals experience is understood. A third variation can be found in an instance in which the phenomenological inquiry involves the audience in the presentation of findings in unique ways. In the work of Laura Brearley, for example, the audience actively and explicitly participates in the interpretation of research results. This method breaks down the determinacy principle in which the studies were conducted and reported within finite space, time and relative conceptual contexts. Regardless of these differences, however, all authors have attempted to highlight the tensions, difficulties and struggles that may face the phenomenological researcher. In phenomenological research of the lived world of individuals it is incumbent on the researcher to adhere to the injunction: employ every reasonable and appropriate measure to present the lived world of people in everyday life with clarity and authenticity. At first reading, the suggestion that such a mandate is required seems superfluous or, at best, naive given that research is about the application of rigour in the pursuit of knowledge. But clarity and authenticity is not as straightforward as it sounds. To the insightful researcher, mindful of the complex nature of researching a persons lived world and the inherent struggles associated with accurately conveying to the reader what is described by the participant, such a cautionary entreaty is respectfully heeded. In phenomenological research involving interviews and case studies, each step of the research process is essentially a personal struggle to maintain a connectedness with the lived world of the other as participant. The struggle associated with phenomenological research is not just limited to the interview context, as the participant can be a written text, art, music, or any other phenomena with which a relationship of understanding is possible. In describing the interpretative nature of such (phenomenological) relationships, Max van Manen proposes that: Making something of a text or of lived experience by interpreting its meaning is more accurately a process of insightful invention, discovery, or disclosuregrasping and formulating anunderstanding is not a rule-bound process but a free act of seeing meaning (van Manen, 1990, p. 79).

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For the meaning of a textwhether a life-world, art work, etc.to be revealed, the researcher is required to open up and be receptive toward the voice of the text. Reaching a defining point in the analysis process is not about claiming that the ultimate voice has been found or that the text and its interpretation is now completeor even dead. On the contrary, the text remains dynamic and living, such that with each interpretation new insights and understandings are gleaned about the world of the phenomenon under inquiry. For this to occur something approximating what Hans-Georg Gadamer1 describes as the joining, or fusing, of horizons between researcher and participant is required, or, in other words, the engendering of a process of open dialogue between interpreter and text. And this is not easy. To embark upon a journey of phenomenological inquiry without giving due consideration to the implicit struggles and strivings and ups and downs inherent in such an undertaking is best avoided. It is hoped that this monograph will help those interested in phenomenology to avoid such pitfalls. The monograph has been divided into three sections: Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Existential Phenomenologywhich spans the disciplines of psychology, sociology and the human sciences; and Interpretative Sociology. While no explicit attempt has been made to categorize the work of each contributor within the traditional disciplines of philosophy, psychology and sociologywhich phenomenology has been most commonly associated withbroad areas of commonality are evident amongst contributors. The similarities in the research of each contributor become evident at the level of application, and the kind of phenomenological lineages that are evoked. The decision to group the contributions into three sections is intended to reflect the particular lineages of the contributors involved in this project. Consequently, it should be noted that these groupings are not intended to be exhaustive.2 The first section, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, contains the first two chapters: Phenomenology and Wonder by Robyn Barnacle, and Hermeneutic Phenomenology by Paul Sharkey. In chapter 1, Robyn Barnacle describes how her inquiries into hermeneutic phenomenology led to an interest in the relation between thought and desire, which was to form the basis of her doctoral research. The chapter explores the central themes of her research, emphasising the relationship between language and the world and the unique place of the other in eliciting the desire for understanding. In chapter 2, Paul Sharkey traces the contours of his research approach that also draw on the rich philosophical traditions of

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hermeneutics and phenomenology. Sharkey describes how phenomenology brings with it a concern for researchers to move their research gaze beyond appearances to the underlying significance of the events being investigated. And, likewise, the paper explores how hermeneutics provides insights for the researcher wanting to engage with the expressions of life with a view towards entering the world that they would disclose. The second section of the monograph, Existential Phenomenology, comprises chapters 3 to 5, and the work of Gloria Latham, Anthony Welch and Laura Brearley. In A Journey Towards Catching Phenomenology, Gloria Latham describes some of the many challenges that a researcher faces when pursuing a phenomenological approach. Merging the worlds of the researcher and the research, she focuses on the traveller who allows herself to feel utterly lost in the life-world of young children in order to begin to find her way. In the fourth chapter, Finding a Way Through the Maze, Anthony Welch presents an amalgam of his experiences of being involved in phenomenological inquiry as student, researcher, and supervisor. He has endeavoured to distil such experiences and to present them as one persons journey into the world of phenomenological research. Welch aims to provide readers with a snapshot of what it is like to engage in phenomenological inquiry. In the final chapter in this section, chapter 5, Exploring Creative Forms within Phenomenological Research, Laura Brearley describes how she uses creative forms to explore the experience of transition in organisational life. Her work draws on the phenomenological concepts of empathically engaging with another human beings experience (Bentz & Shapiro, 1998), exploring the essential themes of the human condition (von Eckartsberg, 1998) and merging cognitive and non-cognitive ways of knowing (van Manen, 1997). Through the forms of poetry, stories, songs, images and multimedia, research participants and others are invited to engage with the research to become co-creators of meaning and to actively and explicitly participate in a continuing interpretation and re-interpretation of the research results. The third section, Interpretative Sociology, contains the final chapter, number 6, by Erica Hallebone. Titled Phenomenological Constructions of Psychosocial Identities, here Hallebone reflects on her interest in the concept of the self as a phenomenon. Using social phenomenology she explores the meanings individuals give to lived experience of the self or personal identity. Attributed meanings take place in a variety of social contexts, in which both individuality and freedom are

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problematic. These are the social contexts of psychotherapy clients, reproductive technology users, homeless people and gamblers.

Notes
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For a more detailed account of Gadamers work, see chapter 2 by Paul Sharkey. For a more detailed analysis of the various areas of application of phenomenological inquiry, see Encyclopaedia of Phenomenology (1997) (ed. L. Embree et al.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Boston. Or, alternatively, H. Spiegelberg (1982), The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction (3rd ed.), Martinus-Hijhoff, Boston.

References
Derrida, J. (1999), Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility: A Dialogue with Jacques Derrida. In Richard Kearney & Mark Dooley (eds), Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, Routledge, London. Encyclopaedia of Phenomenology (1997) (ed. L. Embree et al.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht; Boston. Geertz, C. (1965), New Views on the Nature of Man (ed. J. R. Platt), University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Pollio, H., Henley, T. & Thompson, C. (1997), The Phenomenon of Everyday Life, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Spiegelberg, H. (1982), The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction (3rd ed.), Martinus-Hijhoff, Boston. van Manen, M. (1990), Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy, State University of New York Press, Albany.

CHAPTER 1

Phenomenology and Wonder


Robyn Barnacle
That is the first thing I mean by course of philosophy. You cannot be a master and master this course. You cannot open up a question without leaving yourself open to it. You cannot scrutinise a subjectwithout being scrutinised by it. You cannot do any of these things without renewing ties with the season of childhood, the season of the minds possibilities (JeanFrancois Lyotard, 1992, p. 116).1 Phenomenology begins with wonder. It is the wonder, to begin with at least, not so much of asking a questionof I wonder why, but of opening up to the unknown, and in a sense, therefore, to the question. Doing phenomenology is about opening up to the question in the hope that it will comelistening for the question. For me it began with the wonder of meaning and understanding. This occurred while I was studying philosophy as an undergraduate and the questions that were raised about these things just kept arousing my fascination. How is meaning possible? How is it that we not only find significance in the world but are also able to devise a myriad of stories and explanations about what we find there that can linger and resonate for others? What magic creates such a ubiquitous and pervasive spell? I cannot offer a reason as to why I became interested in these things, other than to say that even if there was a reason it would not necessarily precede the wonder. For wonder is itself a starting place, an origin, a beginning. Wonder can set in motion desirethe directionality of thought. Reason is often misconstrued as the only instigator of thought, as if it has, indeed, captured the imagination. But there is more to what stirs one to think than what thought itself can make transparent. The circumstances that led me to be interested in phenomenology, or more specifically; hermeneutic phenomenology, were largely serendipitous. My first teacher of philosophy was practising in the hermeneutic/phenomenological tradition, and consequently had a considerable impact upon the kind of material that I was exposed to. It was not surprising, then, that I gravitated toward a certain section of
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the library catalogue rather than another. But the approach that I found in the thinkers that were largely to inform my Doctoral research, Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, appealed to me immediately. For me, deciding to investigate these thinkers further was not a calculated manoeuvre. It is rather that their ideas had a certain resonance that I could not resist. But this is not to say that there was nothing deliberate about why I came to work within this tradition. In the history of philosophy, phenomenology offers something quite unique: it directs thought toward, in the words of Edmund Husserl, the things themselves. It is not that this had never happened before in some sense, as the relationship between ourselves and the world, natural or otherwise, has always been a subject that has interested philosophers. But what distinguishes phenomenology from empiricism, rationalism and the like, is that it does not project a structure onto things in advance. In rationalist, or systematic thought, a method is devised in advance of undertaking a study. In radical contradistinction to this, phenomenological inquiry tries to let the way that a thing is understood be informed, at least in part, through an open receptivity toward the phenomena. To understand the nature of the insight that is offered by phenomenological inquiryone that is easily misunderstoodit is useful to begin by considering the rational model in more detail. The rationalist model, epitomised by Descartes, forms the basis of modern thought and foregrounds the pre-eminent role of the subject as rational knower in understanding. This account of understanding arose as Descartess response to one of the main problems that occupied the minds of enlightenment thinkers: that of how to demonstrate epistemological certainty. This is an epistemological problem, rather than ontological, in that it is concerned with how we can have knowledge per se, including knowledge of the existence of the external worldincluding the body. Thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Descartes, were concerned with first principles: they wanted, that is, to demonstrate the foundations of knowledge. Doing this involved proving beyond doubt the absolute certainty of particular knowledge claims. The difficulty of achieving certainty of this sort led thinkers of this time to be very suspicious of sensory perception and commonsense. Most of us feel fairly confident, based on commonsense, that the chair that we are sitting on, our body, the room, house, street, etc. do exist. But it is another thing to make what philosophers would consider a credible knowledge claim about such common-sense understanding. The reason for this

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is that any attempt to prove that the chair or house exists, for example, will depend on sensory perception. But distinguishing with absolute certainty between reality and illusion is something that our senses alone cannot do, and this means that in terms of providing us with knowledge they are not beyond doubt. Securing foundations for knowledge that contain no doubt, however, was just what philosophers of this time (and many still today) wanted to do. As a consequence, thinkers such as Descartes turned to the internal worldthe mindfor an alternative. This is what his famous dictum I think, therefore I am does. It attempts to remove any doubt about knowledge by grounding knowledge in the thinkers awareness of their own cognitive processes. The fact that I think therefore becomes the basis for epistemological certainty. What allows Descartes to claim that this overcomes the problem of the fallibility of the senses is his claim that knowledge of ones ability to thinkones rationalityis possible independently of sensual experience. For Descartes, then, epistemological certainty is possible but only on the basis of separating thought or consciousness from the world of the senses. What is unique about Descartess model of human understanding is that the human subject is understood primarily in terms of a disembodied consciousness, and the world, once so intricately tied up with understanding, is relegated to a difficult outside. In the Cartesian model (that of Descartes), thought, including ideas, emotions, etc., is treated as prior to, and therefore independent of an externalised sensual world. This does two key things. Firstly, it establishes a hierarchy whereby cognitive knowledge, or that not dependent on sensory perception, is treated as superior to that obtained by the senses. Sensual knowledge becomes secondary, and lesser, to the new self-consciousness obtained by the knowing subject through the privileging of their capacity for a disembodied consciousness. Secondly, being human becomes defined primarily through this disembodied consciousness, such that the human subject is defined through its own capacity to know itself. In this way, Descartess rational knower can be understood as self-present, in that it is a model of the subject in which understanding occurs first and foremost through the reflexivity of ones own capacity to know. The notion of the self-presence of the rational knower, as given first to themselves (as rational), independently of sensual experience, went on to form the basis for scientific models of understanding that have predominated ever since. One can detect the legacy of this in the central role that objectivity and detachment have in scientific method

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notions that are only possible given a conception of understanding based on the possible separation of thought from the world. But in trying to distinguish between what can be known with certainty from all else, Descartes unwittingly unleashed an even bigger problema subject/object, or mind/body dichotomy. For if all we can be certain of is the fact that we are consciousand conscious only of internal mental processeshow can we claim to know anything about the outside or sensual world? In other words, if the knowing subject can only have certainty of themselves as a subject who is conscious, how can they claim to know anything about the world around them?even if it exists at all? This is no minor problem. It challenges the very foundations of knowledge (those same foundations that Descartes was trying so desperately to secure). It was these problems that Edmund Husserl first addressed when, in the early part of the twentieth century, he developed an alternative model of understanding called phenomenologythe study of phenomena. Husserl problematised the dichotomy that Descartes had set up between the subjector knower, and objectthat which is known. The unique way that Husserl did this was to consider neither thought nor objects of knowledge in isolationas Descartes and many others since him have done. Instead, Husserl asked into the relation between consciousness and objects of knowledge, firstly as a relation, and secondly, by foregrounding the role of the object in that relation. He turned, as I mentioned above, to the things themselves. Why was this so significant? The context in which Husserl was workingthe early twentieth centurywas a time in which the ideals of the enlightenment were already being broadly questioned, particularly in the arts and in Continental philosophy. One consequence of this was that the supposed neutrality or independence of language in understanding was itself being questionedan idea that was in its infancy then but is now taken as given. What was newly recognised as the limitations of language manifested in Husserls work in what he called the perspectival nature of understanding. By thinking about understanding as a relation between subject and object, Husserl concluded that understanding is only ever of aspects of things, and is, therefore, perspectival. By this he meant that we never understand things in their entirety or as they actually are, but only ever aspects of them. A simple example of this is the limitations of visual perception in comprehending the three-dimensional nature of the world. When observing an object, for example, it is impossible to see the thing in its entiretyone can only see partial aspects at a time, and the disclosure of one aspect necessarily conceals another.

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Readers might recognise ideas in Husserls approach that have now become fairly commonplace: the idea, for example, that all understanding is biased according to the perspective of the particular person involved. But although these ideas may grow out of Husserls work (as well as others), there is also a more important insight. For in emphasising the perspectival nature of understandingthat it is only ever of aspects of thingsHusserl directed our understanding of thought toward its object. That is, he placed in the foreground the role and status of the other, or the object of understanding, in understanding (recall that for Descartes the emphasis was solely on the subject as knower). Husserls key point was this: an object is not present to itself, it is only present to a subject. Perhaps this does not sound all that momentous, but it is an insight that forms the basis of the phenomenological model and it cemented the impact that Husserls ideas were to have on later thinkers. For what Husserl identified with this idea is the unavoidable effect of the knower on what is known, an effect that means that we can never have pure or unmediated access to that which is other than ourselves. When we attempt to understand the world we do not access it as it is, but rather, as it is to usand indeed in trying to make sense of the world it is inevitable that we will always find something of ourselves, both historically and culturally. It follows from this that the search for first principles, or knowledge that is absolute and cannot be doubted, is futile. All understanding reflects the particularity of the knower, and therefore cannot be thought of as absolute. But this does not mean that Husserl advocated a subjective account of meaning and abandoned the search for truth. On the contrary, he raised the stakes. Just how Husserl raised the stakes in the search for meaning is most evident from later thinkers. For Heidegger, Gadamer, Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas, Husserls legacy was in the emphasis he gave to the question of the role and status of the other in understanding. This question was to be reformulated most significantly in the notion of the irreducible difference of the other, which refers to the fundamental limitation of the I being unable to fully know, or be on the other sidethe side of the other: The other is infinitely other because we never have any access to the other as such. That is why he/she is the other. This separation, this dissociation is not only a limit, but it is also the condition of the relation to the other, a non-relation as relation (Derrida, 1999, p. 71).

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Husserls principle insight, an insight that is expressed above by Derrida with reference to Levinas, is not only that we never have direct access to the other as such, or the other in-itself, but that this lack of direct accessthe difference between the self and otheris what makes a relation to the other possible. It was with this insight that thinkers influenced by phenomenology shifted the focus in theories of understanding from the hegemony of the Cartesian knowing subject to the relation between subject and objectas a relation. For what was recognised was that, contra Descartes, we are not given first and foremost to ourselves as rational knowers, but rather, are only given to ourselves as knowers through being in relation to an otheror many such relations. It is the relation between the I and the other that becomes crucial. Consequently, the problem of meaning became for phenomenologists not just a matter of focusing on the inner workings of the mind and the nature of rationality, but, instead, required developing a deeper appreciation of the relation between the subject and the world. As an approach to inquiry, what phenomenology offers through this insight regarding the irreducibility of the other is a starting place to which the inquirer must continually return. This is demonstrated by the central role that thinkers such as Levinas, Heidegger, Gadamer and Derrida have given to the notion of difference in their work. For all of these thinkers the point is not so much that I am different from you, but even more, that your difference is constitutive of what I am. When I began this piece by claiming that phenomenology begins with wonder, it was to this relation of difference that I was referring. In recognising the fundamental difference of the other, the phenomenologist attempts to remain open to that difference, and, therefore, to that relation through which I become what I am not, and what I am. Ironically, what for enlightenment thinkers was an intransigent problemthe lack of certainty about our knowledge of the other becomes, for phenomenologists, recognition of what is unique about our relationship to the world. Both recognise the limitations of knowledge, but while, for the former, the limitations are seen as a problem to be overcome, the latter treats such limitations as inherent in the nature of understanding. An all-conquering approach to knowledge is challenged by one more reflective about the process through which understanding is formulated. But being open to difference is not an easy and straightforward thing to dolet alone account for. This is demonstrated by the fact that, in philosophy at least, the question of the relation to the other is at the heart of the problem that is phenomenology. Phenomenology, that is, is the engagement with this problem as a problem

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or as the problem. As an approach to inquiry, phenomenology is not concerned with overcoming difference, but rather, in attending to the other as other and therefore in engaging difference. It is understandable, however, if it might seem to the reader that phenomenology as I have described it makes reaching even any understanding of difference impossible. Not only is there recognition of the unavoidable effect of the knower on the other, at the same time the other is cast as ultimately beyond the reach of the knower. Both ideas point to the limitations of knowledge: the limit of the I in relation to that which is not I. But if there appears to be a tension here then things are exactly as they should be. The problem of the other, and the question of just how impenetrable difference is, remains highly contested in debates within Continental philosophyparticularly between Gadamer and Derrida enthusiasts. Corresponding to these debates are various responsessome optimistic, some pessimistic. But all recognise that the problem of the other should remain at the forefront of all (phenomenological) inquiry. How did these ideas affect my own work? It was not the case that I had a set of questions in advance of coming to phenomenology and then used phenomenology to examine those questions. It is also not the case that the ideas that I have been describing acted as a methodology in my work, if by methodology one means a set of rules and procedures that are taken up as a tool to apply to a set of pre-existing problems. Quite apart from the fact that this tradition does not intentionallyoffer rules and procedures for inquiry, to suggest that there was a simple chronology of idea-methodology-outcome in the research process would be more than a little misleading. On the contrary, the research process was a cyclical one, in which the unfolding of ideas that were to drive the research process occurred through that very process, and not in advance of it. In this way, rather than being able to identify a beginning or end to the process, both blur through endlessly exchanging roles. And the process even continues today. This is not just a feature of my own work. Within philosophy, phenomenology has an unavoidable self-reflexive quality. In my research, for example, while the nature of meaning and understanding formed the subject of the inquiry, and so constituted what the inquiry was about, these same elements were also the mode in which that inquiry was revealedthe nature of meaning as made manifest through thought. So while meaning and understanding were the object of the inquiry they were also constitutive of what was made manifest. In this context, the theoretical framework phenomenological hermeneuticsand the subject matter cannot be

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treated as in some way independent or separate from what is understood. This is thought reflecting on itself reflecting on itself. But not as a hopelessly spiralling vortex of interiorityalthough this is always the danger. Hopefully it is, rather, thought inspired and propelled by its own limits and possibilities. In retrospect, it was when I began to engage with Heideggers notion of the in-between nature of thought that I came to understand what my doctoral research might/could be about. (Keep in mind that although I only finished my PhD recently, I started it at a time (and place) in which the research project did not need to be pinned down in advancethese were the days when students were allowed to explore) One of Husserls actions in challenging the assumptions underlying rationalism and the oppositional thinking that it engenders was to re-situate thought in the world, thereby restoring the role of the thing itself in understanding. Heidegger took up this theme by emphasising the way that understanding occurs in the relation between thought and its object, rather than in the application of principles or propositions decided in advance of that relation. Thought, for Heidegger, is relational. Heidegger referred to his work as phenomenological hermeneutics because it drew on ideas from both Husserl, who was Heideggers teacher, and the hermeneutical work of thinkers such as Wilhelm Dilthey and Friedrich Schleiermacher. While the main influence of the latter on Heideggers work can be found in his emphasis on the role of language in understanding, the effects of the former are evident in his emphasis on the relationality of understanding. The central theme of Heideggers work is that in coming to understand the nature of phenomena we must attend to the relation that exists between things and ourselves. The emphasis on the relationality of thought in Heideggers work is grounded in his conception of the nature of human existence, which he describes as Daseinmeaning being-there. As humans, according to Heidegger, we have a unique comportment toward the world of always already being in the world, or in other words, of being-in-relation-to-the-world. The idea that humans exist in relation to the worldas being always already in the worldmight sound rather trivial (if not a little obscure). If we are not in the world already, you might ask, where else would we be? Recall, however, the epistemological legacy that Heidegger was challenging. The Cartesian model claims that knowledge is primarily of ones own capacity to knowit is the self-presence of the self to the self. Recall, also, that this caused all sorts of other problems around the status of non-cognitive knowledgesuch

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as of the corporeal world. This may not be a problem that we all face on a daily basis, but it is a philosophical problem. Heideggers response is to say that to be human is to be situated meaningfully in the world with other things, in that it is not something that we only do secondarily through rational reflection. Consequently, for Heidegger understanding is always of a relation already established between knower and the world, as a relation that manifests historically and culturally through language. This idea, that thought could be understood as relational, was a breakthrough for mealthough I did not realise fully why until later. It was not until I started to find parallels to this idea in Platos work on Eros that my project really began to come together. If a similar conception of thought as relational could also be found in the ancients, I reasoned, then an alternative, non-Cartesian, history of thought existed. And moreover, it existed in Platoin the supposed origins of rationalism. Consequently, my doctoral project began to be defined. By reading Heidegger together with Plato I began to explore the connection between thought and desire and, in particular, the idea that objects of thought not only influence inquiry, but even more, can be understood as actively eliciting and inspiring the desire to inquire. The idea that thought is inspired, or even seduced, by what it is about is an insight that occurred very early in philosophy. Etymologically, philosophy means love of wisdomphilos-sophia. Here, in the ancient Greek origins of philosophy, is the idea, not just that thought is affected by what it is about, but that it is actively drawn to, or inspired by, its subject matter (and consequently, potentially led astray). Plato examined the role of desire, or Eros, in philosophy in the Symposium. There, Eros is described as a divine herald guiding the philosopher through images of beauty in the ascent to wisdom. But the path Eros revealed is not only layered with trickery and deceit, but also is one whose ultimate goalwisdomcan never be reached. Plato describes erotic love as constant striving. In my own work, I linked Platos account of Eros with Heideggers notion of the in-between nature of thought to propose an account of thought as erotic. Thought can be understood as erotic, I claimed, because it is governed by the glimpsethe alluring suggestion of what might be. The implication of this is that the project of thought is never completethat which reveals itself to thought never does so in its entirety, and, consequently, what is understood is only ever partial. But this is not meant to signal impoverishment, or loss, on the side of knowledge and understanding. It is rather that there is always more to think, and hence, to be inspired by. The currency of

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desire in thought is wonder, as wonder is not so much about what gives itself to thought, as about what does notalthough it is inspired by, or through, what does. As I have described above, it was my exposure to hermeneutic and phenomenological philosophy that gave me both the ideas, and the inspiration, for my doctoral research. I could not say that I would have explored these ideas if I had not been exposed to this tradition, but nor could I say that I would not have. But this is not the point. What a tradition of thinking offers is a conversation, played out over time and with multiple authors and protagonists, in which to engage. And it is through that engagement that ones own ideas are aroused, considered, sharpened or abandoned. Who can say whose ideas they really are? So, if I were to answer the question What is it like to do phenomenology?, I would answer that it is a conversation. And there are infinite possible conversations. But this is not to say that misinterpretation and misunderstanding are therefore not possible. By emphasising the relationality of understanding, rather than a set of foundational principles or concepts, phenomenology can be misinterpreted as a licence to engage uncritically in the personal and subjective. This is a difficult juncture for phenomenological research. For while phenomenology pledges itself to being attentive to the particularity and specificity of its subject matter by rejecting the imposition of grand systems, it can thereby also run the risk of being charged with subjectivism through the lack of a rational, or objective, foundation. Moreover, by emphasising the particular there is a danger that the work will be treated as merely idiosyncratic. In my own work these potential problems were minimised through the locatedness of the research within the broader tradition of phenomenology and hermeneutics. Like most research within philosophy, it grows out of an ongoing dialogue with particular traditions within the history of philosophy. But this is not to say that the problems mentioned above therefore do not exist. They do. But the problem of how a discipline can ultimately legitimate its claims is not one that is unique to phenomenology. What is important is that the problem is not glossed over in the research itself. When working within a particular tradition baggage is necessarily carriedand the phenomenological tradition is no different from any other in this respect. As to the limitations to my research of working within the phenomenological tradition, it was not the larger issue of legitimacy that was to trouble me. Rather, it was an aspect of Heideggers approach, and one that did not become apparent to me for some time. The dangercommon to all traditionsis that the

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more a tradition is adopted the harder it can be to think beyond that traditionor to even notice that one is thinking within a particular tradition at all. In my case, it was not until the completion of the thesis that the nature of the gnawing hole that I had sensed for some time actually became apparent. I had written a thesis on desire and yet there was hardly anything of the body to be found in all 300 pages. I was aghast. How could I have been so blind? The answer is that it was not just I who was blind, but also Heideggers particular brand of phenomenological hermeneutics. For all his emphasis on being in the world, and the relationality of understanding, the body just does not figure in Heideggers work. Thought and understanding are construed through the broader influences and constraints of being in the world, yet the more immediate corporeality of embodiednessand the social and political dimensions that it involvesis largely ignored. While my account of the erotics of thought challenged Heideggers model by emphasising the relation between entities and thought, rather than the relation between being and thought that is central to Heidegger, I now believe that one more step needed to be taken. But all was not lost. Strangely enough, this realisation has remained the most enduring insight of my doctoral research. It is not so much the hiatus itself within Heideggers work that has stayed with me, but rather, the process of discovering one. I did not fail to notice the lack of the body in Heideggers work while doing the researchit did occur to me. Rather, I failed to realise it as a problem. Perhaps it was only having been through the tradition, if you like, and having enacted its discourses, that I was in a position to appreciate why the absence of the body might be a problem. This is not to say that I now know how to tackle this problem, for that remains the question. But what this experience has left me with is a new appreciation of the nature of learning and of knowledgethe fickleness and simultaneous stubbornness of both. But in gaining this new sense of the process of understanding I have also come to appreciate the need for magnanimity in a new light. It is in coming away from a body of research and realising the potential limitations within it that I realise that I have actually learnt something. It is here that I think phenomenology has something to offer philosophy and inquiry generally. A theoretical framework that engenders wonder, or openness, in the way that we understand the world enables thought to linger in the presence of possibilitythe minds possibilitiesand thus to remain poised toward what might be.

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Notes
1

I might also add that I am not intending to imply that Lyotard is a phenomenologist, only that I have affinities with his work.

References
Derrida, Jacques (1981), Dissemination (Trans. Barbara Johnson), The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Derrida, Jacques (1982), Margins of Philosophy (Trans. Alan Bass), Chicago University Press, Chicago. Derrida, Jacques (1993), Writing and Difference (Trans. Alan Bass), Routledge, London. Derrida, Jacques, (1999), Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility: A Dialogue with Jacques Derrida. In Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley (eds), Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, Routledge, London. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1975), Truth and Method (Trans. & ed. Garrett Barden & John Cumming), The Seabury Press, New York. Hadot, Pierre (1995), Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (Trans. Michael Chase), Blackwell, Oxford. Heidegger, Martin (1967), What Is A Thing? (Trans. W. B. Barton, Jr.), Gateway Editions, Indiana. Heidegger, Martin (1969), Identity and Difference (Trans. Joan Stambaugh), Harper & Row, New York. Heidegger, Martin (1971), On the Way To Language (Trans. Joan Stambaugh), Harper & Row, New York. Heidegger, Martin (1985), Early Greek Thinking: The Dawn of Western Philosophy (Trans. David Farrell Krell & Frank A. Capuzzi), Harper & Row, New York. Heidegger, Martin (1988), The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (Trans. Albert Hofstadter), Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis. Heidegger, Martin (1993), Basic Writings (2nd ed.) (Trans. Albert Hofstadter, ed. David Farrell Krell), HarperCollins, New York. Heidegger, Martin (1996), Being and Time (Trans. Joan Stambaugh), State University of New York Press, New York. Husserl, Edmund (1989), Appendix (Trans. David Carr). In Jacques Derrida, The Origin of Geometry: Edmund Husserls Origin of Geometry: An Introduction (Trans. John P. Leavey, Jr.), University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, pp. 15780.

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Irigaray, Luce (1994), Sorcerer Love: A Reading of Platos Symposium, Diotimas Speech (Trans. Eleanor H. Kuykendall). In N. Tuana (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of Plato, Pennsylvania State University Press, PA, pp. 18195. Kierkegaard, Soren (1966), The Concept of Irony: With Constant Reference to Socrates (Trans. Lee M. Capel), Collins, London. Levinas, Emmanuel (1991), Totality and Infinity (Trans. Alphonso Lingis), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht. Lyotard, Jean-Francois (1992), The Postmodern Explained to Children: Correspondence 19821985 (Trans. Don Barry et al., eds Julian Pefanis & Morgan Thomas), Power Publications, Sydney. Michelfelder, Diane P. & Palmer, Richard E. (eds) (1989), Dialogue and Deconstruction: The Gadamer and Derrida Encounter, State University of New York Press, Albany. Nancy, Jean-Luc (1996), Shattered Love. In Peter Connor (ed.), The Inoperative Community (Trans. Lisa Garbus & Simona Sawhney), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Nussbaum, Martha C. (1994), The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, Princeton University Press, Princeton. Otto, Walter F. (1979), The Homeric Gods (Trans. Robert B. Palmer), Thames & Hudson, London. Plato (1970), The Symposium and Other Dialogues (Trans. Benjamin Jowett), vol. 2 of two volumes, The Dialogues of Plato, Sphere Books, Bucks. Ricoeur, Paul (1974), The Conflict of Interpretation: Essays in Hermeneutics (ed. Don Ihde), Northwestern University Press, Evanston. Rosen, Stanley (1988), The Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry: Studies in Ancient Thought, Routledge, New York. Shapiro, G. and Sica, A. (eds) (1984), Hermeneutics: Questions and Prospects, The University of Massachusetts Press. Young, Julian (1997), Heidegger, Philosophy, Nazism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK; New York.

CHAPTER 2

Hermeneutic Phenomenology
Paul Sharkey
When I ask myself why I chose to engage in a research process that was informed by the traditions of phenomenology and hermeneutics, I find myself confronted with a question like, Why did I marry this person?, or Why am I working in this profession rather than another? Questions like these are easy to answer on a superficial level, but much harder to answer in depth. These reflections stem from a recent case study of educational change which I completed for a doctoral research program. The study investigated a program of change in a particular school. It put the schools mission and the professional outlook of its teachers at the fore of the investigation and found points of resonance and dissonance between the schools mission and the outlook of its teachers. As might be expected, there were many differences among teachers and administrators as the change process unfolded. Hermeneutic phenomenology was useful in this context because it provided a robust framework for considering the nature of the many acts of interpretation and understanding that were associated with the change process. While hermeneutic phenomenology threw light on the research process, it did not supply a set of rule-like procedures for conducting the research. In fact, hermeneutic phenomenology does just the opposite and holds that methods in themselves do not lead to understanding or good interpretative outcomes: other factors do. These factors are variously described in the hermeneutic literature as scholarship, tact, judgement and taste. The literature of hermeneutic phenomenology is admittedly somewhat dense and abstract, but because interpretation and understanding are critical elements in any research process, the effort to penetrate the literature is richly rewarding. Many practical consequences flow from the decisions (conscious or otherwise) that the researcher makes on issues that are reflected upon deeply in the literature on hermeneutic phenomenology. For example, while many research approaches seek to be objective, hermeneutic phenomenology does not seek to objectify the object of the researchers interest. On the contrary, hermeneutic phe16

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nomenology always seeks to open up a middle space of rich engagement between the research object and the researcher. Metaphors like play and conversation are used in hermeneutic phenomenology to describe this middle space. Dialogue partners get lost in the conversations subject matter in authentic conversation, and it is this getting lost in the subject matter that leads to genuine understanding and interpretation. Hermeneutic phenomenology offers the example of players getting lost in the playing of a game as another instance of the human capacity for deep engagement and an expansion of understanding. The goal of hermeneutic phenomenology is a fusion of horizons where the research object is understood not in its own terms, nor in the researchers, but in terms that are common to both. These common terms emerge in the context of a process of inquiry that can be characterised as being playful and dialogical. While many research approaches seek to eliminate the prior understandings of the researcher, hermeneutic phenomenology seeks to test those prior understandings. These are seen as the prerequisite and the point of entry for any act of interpretation or understanding. The goal of the research process is not to jettison these prior understandings, but rather to test them. This testing unfolds as a deep and genuine engagement with the object of ones research interest. The engagement is genuine when it is open to the possibility that something else might be the case. The implication for research is that the researcher must always remain open to having his or her current understandings confirmed or varied by what arises as the research process unfolds. Before considering these insights from hermeneutic phenomenology in greater detail, it is helpful to consider phenomenology and hermeneutics as separate entities in their own right. The marriage that is hermeneutic phenomenology draws richly on the traditions of both hermeneutics and phenomenology in philosophy and there are many valuable insights in these traditions for the contemporary researcher.

Phenomenology
Edmund Husserl (d. 1938) was an important figure in the development of phenomenology. Husserls phenomenology aimed to provide a firm foundation for knowledge. He developed a method of reflection that sought to regard objects with as few presuppositions as possible. Zu den Sachen! is a phrase that captures the impulse that drove Husserls phenomenology. Literally translated, the phrase means To the things! Phenomenological reflection seeks to provide a true

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description of objects based on what the objects are in themselves (in contrast to a description of the objects based upon presuppositions of one type or another). In this sense phenomenology involves a disciplined and sustained attending to the things themselves and phenomenological descriptions are the outcome of such disciplined attending. Husserls method for regarding things in themselves involved a deliberate attempt to suspend ones presuppositions about the phenomenon that one was describing. Terms like bracketing, epoche and reduction are all associated with the method that Husserl elaborated. The following excerpt from a lecture series given by Husserl in 1907 provides a clear indication of the impulse that drove his phenomenology: No inclination is more dangerous to the seeing cognition of origins and absolute data than to think too much, and from these reflections in thought to create supposed self-evident principlesThus as little interpretation as possible, but as pure an intuition as possible. In fact, we will hark back to the speech of the mystics when they describe the intellectual seeing which is supposed not to be a discursive knowledge. And the whole trick consists in thisto give free rein to the seeing eye and to bracket the references which go beyond the seeing and are entangled with the seeing, along with the entities which are supposedly given and thought along with the seeing and finally to bracket what is read into them through the accompanying reflections (Husserl, 1990/1907, p. 50). Van Manen (1996) noted that many phenomenologists have now abandoned Husserls method involving a bracketing of presuppositions and have taken up alternatives such as poetry in their efforts to describe objects in a phenomenological way.1 For van Manen, phenomenological texts contain thickened languagea language that is concrete but evocative and intensified in some way. The effect of this type of language is to break through taken-for-granted meanings in everyday life to call the reader into a nearer encounter with the phenomenon. Phenomenological writing invites the reader to encounter the phenomenon in a new and fresh way. If the description is phenomenologically powerful, then it acquires a certain transparency, so to speak; it permits us to see the deeper significance, or meaning structures, of the lived experience it describes (van Manen, 1990, p. 122).

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Crotty (1996) was highly critical of many of the research endeavours named phenomenology. His criticism stemmed from the fact that they had not engaged with the philosophical tradition of phenomenology. Crotty has in mind here research approaches labelled as phenomenology simply because they capture the subjective experience of the actors being studied. Crotty sees phenomenology as a philosophy that involves a commitment to describing the reality that is beneath and beyond the subjects experience. He cited the work of Moustakas as a case in point: What Moustakas is seeking to elucidate is loneliness and not just lonely people. His study became phenomenological as he moved from an understanding of his subjects individual experiences of loneliness to an insight into what makes loneliness loneliness. What it studies in the subjects is the object of their experience so that there is an objectivity about phenomenological research (Crotty, 1996, p. 35). Crottys analysis is important because it invites researchers to draw deep insights from phenomenology as a philosophy. Crotty also argued that scholarship demanded that those who claim the term phenomenology for their research ought to have engaged with the philosophy that gave rise to the term in the first place. Those who understand the effects of history and language (and this includes Crotty) acknowledge that it is never possible to provide an objective description of reality. The phenomenological project does not result in an objective description; rather, it is a project that seeks to move beyond the subjective experience of individuals to describe underlying structures or essences in that experience. In this sense the phenomenological project can be contrasted with the project of traditional ethnography where the intention is to describe, within their own terms of reference, the experience and culture of individuals in a particular setting.

Hermeneutics
The key figures exemplifying the synthesis that is hermeneutic phenomenology are Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur (Thompson, 1981, p. 36). Gadamer engaged in an extended analysis of the phenomenon of human understanding and his reflections have deeply shaped the research approach described here. Gadamer was a student of Heidegger who, in his turn, was a student

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of Husserl. While there are some points of resonance with phenomenology in Gadamers analysis, there is also much in his work that derives from alternative sources. In the first instance, hermeneutics was a discipline that elaborated the principles and procedures that ought to be followed when interpreting texts with meanings that were disputed or not immediately apparent. Exegetes seeking to interpret the Bible had recourse to hermeneutics when they were faced with such difficult texts. Since the time of Schleiermacher (d. 1834) however, hermeneutics broadened in scope. Hermeneutics under Schleiermacher encompassed not only reflection upon the interpretation and understanding of written texts, but also upon the spoken word in discourse. At this point, hermeneutics began to address the broader concern of understanding itself and asked questions like, What is understanding? What happens when I say I understand? (Palmer, 1969, p. 68; Howard, 1982, p. xiii). Wilhelm Dilthey (d. 1911) continued the trajectory begun by Schleiermacher and included within the locus of hermeneutics not only reflection on the interpretation of texts and discourse, but also reflection on the interpretation of meaningful human action more generally in such disciplines as history and philosophy. Dilthey was concerned that the Geisteswissenschaften 2 (the human sciences) were being denigrated as second-class academic disciplines because of the rampant positivism of his day (Begley, 1996, p. 92). Dilthey argued that while the human sciences employed different methods from those used in the natural sciences, the human sciences were not less valuable as a consequence. He held that the natural sciences were concerned with explanation and the human sciences with understanding. (Some of these distinctions can still be found today in methodological reflection on the differences between qualitative and quantitative research in social science.) Dilthey distinguished between natural science which sought to quantify and scientifically grasp the natural world, and the modality of the human sciences which was concerned with interpreting and understanding the great expressions of human life, whether derived from law, literature or sacred scripture (Palmer, 1969, p. 41). Gadamers hermeneutics continued in the vein of Schleiermacher and Dilthey. A full analysis of Gadamers thought would demand more than a thesis in its own right. The intention in the present reflections is not to rehearse the details of Gadamers analysis but to describe insights drawn from his work that became important in the conduct of the research program. The following reflections draw out six Gadamerian insights and relate them to the conduct of qualitative research,

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Method A fundamental insight in philosophical hermeneutics is that the person who would understand a text3 or another of lifes expressions does not, in the first instance, rely upon a method. Gadamers analysis was intended to demonstrate the many ways in which human understanding unfolds in the context of, and is embedded in, both history and language. A central plank in Gadamers argument is that scientific method does not provide a means by which the researcher can escape the many effects of history and language. (Having made this point however, Gadamer is at pains to point out, particularly in later revisions of Truth and Method, that modern science is well served by methodical rigour (Gadamer, 1989, pp. xxix, 552).) He argued though that the certainty achieved by scientific method does not suffice to guarantee truth. Truth, for Gadamer, is found by entering into genuine conversation with the text and knowing how to ask the right questions of it (Gadamer, 1989, p. 491), and there is no such thing as a method that tells one how to find what is questionable in regard to one of lifes expressions (Gadamer, 1989, p. 365). Kvale (1996, p. 180) argued that there are no standard methods, no via regia, to arrive at essential meanings and deeper implications of what is said in an interview. This approach to research is also found in Hultgren (1993, p. 29) who challenged the assumption that finding truth ultimately depends on choosing the right methodology. Van Manen (1990, p. 29) continued in the same vein when he offered his methodological text as a methodos (a way) to do qualitative research rather than a method. Van Manen contrasted his approach with any tendency toward constructing a predetermined set of fixed procedures, techniques and concepts that would rule-govern the research project (p. 29). Although he did not suggest that transcript-coding approaches were inappropriate for qualitative research, van Manen differentiated his research approach from the analytic-coding, taxonomic, and dataorganising practices common to ethnography or grounded theory method (van Manen, 1990, p. 29). Van Manen was wary of frequency counting or coding as a means of identifying themes in the data. Too often theme analysis is understood as an unambiguous and fairly mechanical application of some frequency count or coding of selected terms in transcripts or texts, or some other break-down of the content of protocol or documentary material (van Manen, 1990, p. 78). Mishler (1986) is similarly critical of some coding approaches: Codes are generally defined in context-free, sequence free termsAlthough

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a good deal of uncertainty often accompanies codingstatistical evidence brings assurance; significant relations are forthcoming and findings appear (Mishler, 1986, p. 4). The critique of coding as a practice in qualitative research is not offered in an attempt to denigrate the approach. There are many studies that harness the power of the computer and of the coding hierarchy to generate profound insights into the matters being investigated. The hermeneutic conviction is however that coding, of itself, does not necessarily lead to understanding or insight; rather, the revelatory power of research is animated by the researchers powers of observation, reflection and judgement. Gadamers hermeneutics highlights the value of insight and reflection that lie beyond method and these values are to the fore in hermeneutic phenomenology. Conversation Gadamer offered conversation as an ideal for what ought to happen during the hermeneutic process (Gadamer, 1989, p. 385). Conversation exemplified the responsiveness, creativity and freedom so central in genuine understanding: We say that we conduct a conversation, but the more genuine a conversation is, the less its conduct lies within the will of either partner. Thus a genuine conversation is never the one we wanted to conduct. Rather, it is generally more correct to say that we fall into conversation, or even that we become involved in it. The way one word follows another, with the conversation taking its own twists and reaching its own conclusion, may well be conducted in some way, but the partners conversing are far less the leaders of it than the led. No one knows in advance what will come out of a conversation. Understanding or its failure is like an event that happens to us. Thus we can say that something was a good conversation or that it was ill fated (Gadamer, 1989, p. 383). Conversations work well when the Sache selbst (subject matter) of the conversation takes over and the dialogue partners allow themselves to be led by it. Just as phenomenological inquiry is characterised by Zu den Sachen!, a sustained return to the things themselves, hermeneutic inquiry is sustained by a responsiveness to the subject matter as it is opened up in the conversation. Conversations are thwarted when one of the dialogue partners refuses to be led by the conversations subject

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matter and seeks instead to railroad the conversation by imposing his or her own point of view as a template for the conversation to run along. The prerequisite for genuine conversation is that the dialogue partners surrender to the ebb and flow of the conversation as its subject matter unfolds. Individuals allow themselves to be conducted by the subject matter of the conversation when they really consider the weight of the others opinion. The art of questioning was highlighted by Gadamer as being central to the capacity to weigh and test what the Other has to say in the conversation (Gadamer, 1989, p. 367): to question means to lay open, to place in the open. As against the fixity of opinions, questioning makes the object and all its possibilities fluid. A person skilled in the art of questioning is a person who can prevent questions from being suppressed by the dominant opinion (Gadamer, 1989, p. 367). Play Gadamers analysis of play complemented his reflections on conversation. Both play and conversation point to the human capacity for engagement and responsiveness lying at the heart of the phenomenon of human understanding. In Gadamers reflections on what it is like to be lost in the playing of a game, he argued that the game draws the players into its power and fills them with its spirit (Gadamer, 1989, p. 109). The player who refuses to get into the spirit of the game is described as a spoilsport. Part of the spirit of a game is that the players do not have control of the games outcome (Gadamer, 1989, p. 106). The whole point of the game is that the outcome is undecided it is unclear just what will happen. In a game of chess, for example, the spirit of the game would be destroyed if the players changed the rules about how to move the pieces whenever they felt the game was not going their way (Weinsheimer, 1985, p. 104). The attraction of a game, the fascination it exerts, consists precisely in the fact that the game masters its players (Gadamer, 1989, p. 106). For Gadamer, play is as much a being-played-by the game as it is a playing of it. Ball games will be with us forever, Gadamer wrote, because the ball is freely mobile in every direction, appearing to do surprising things of its own accord (Gadamer, 1989, p. 106). The value of play and conversation in Gadamers reflections is that they both point to the human capacity to become lost in the encounter so that the sense is less one of subjects doing something to objects, and more one of engagement such that the dividing lines

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between subjects and objects are blurred. The outcome of the genuine game is associated with none of the participants and all of them at the same time. The notion of Zwischen (middle space) was important in Gadamers analysis as the task of interpretation can never be framed as an event where a subject interprets a text as an object (Gadamer, 1989, p. 311). Gadamer frames interpretation as an event unfolding in the middle space of encounter between text and interpreter. Various commentators on Gadamer have elaborated upon his analysis of the middle space in which the phenomenon of human understanding unfolds. Crusius (1991) located the meaning of the text in the between among us as we attempt to enlarge our horizons by incorporating the insights of the other, even as the other is challenged by what we ask and assert (p. 39). The miracle of understanding, Gadamer argued, is not a mysterious communion of souls but sharing in a common meaning (Gadamer, 1989, p. 292). The common meaning is found in the encounter between interpreter and text. Metaphors like play and conversation point to the interactive and responsive nature of that encounter. The encounter is so engaging that the participants get lost in a creative middle space where their own ideas and horizons are brought into a creative fusion with those of the text. It is in this middle space that understanding unfolds and the text is heard for what it has to say in the context of those who seek to interpret it. The fusion of horizons between text and interpreter is a dynamic and broadening process. The hermeneutic task is not presented as one where an interpreter (with a fixed horizon) seeks to understand the fixed and objective meaning of a text (also with a fixed horizon). The hermeneutic task is presented as one where the meaning of the text opens up in an encounter that is best described, as mentioned, as contextual, playful and dialogical. Researchers who engage in hermeneutic phenomenology take these insights seriously and seek to enter the middle space that is opened up in dialogical and playful engagement with the object of the research interest. Understanding as a productive (not reproductive) activity Not occasionally but always, the meaning of a text goes beyond its author. That is why understanding is not merely a reproductive but always a productive activity as wellIt is enough to say that we understand in a different way, if we understand at all (Gadamer, 1989, p. 296emphasis in original).

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For Gadamer, understanding takes place as a fusion of horizons: a fusion between the horizon of the interpreter and the horizon projected by the text. Because the horizon projected by the text is always understood within the context of the interpreter, the hermeneutic process cannot be one of reproducing the mind of the texts author but rather, one of engaging with the text in a spirit of openness so that what it has to say finds expression within the horizon of the interpreter. While Schleiermacher portrayed the hermeneutic task as being one of reconstructing what was in the mind of the author as a means to understanding the meaning of the text, Gadamer argued that hermeneutics was always a productive, rather than a reproductive, activity because the meaning of a text is always co-determined by both the hermeneutic situation of the interpreter and the horizon that the text projects. There are implications for the process of deriving meaning in texts when the task of interpretation is understood in this way: the artist who creates something is not the appointed interpreter of it. As an interpreter he has no automatic authority over the person who is simply receiving his work. Insofar as he reflects on his own work, he is his own reader. The meaning that he, as reader, gives his own work does not set the standard. The only standard of interpretation is the sense of his creation, what it means (Gadamer, 1989, p. 193). This is not to suggest that texts are meaningless, or to assert that the expressions of life have every meaning attributed to them by those who interpret them. Gadamers argument is rather that there is no meaning of a text already-out-there waiting to be plucked like an apple from a tree by an interpreter. The act of interpretation is codetermined by the horizons of both the text and the interpreter. Understanding is the culmination of a journey of interpretation that is co-determined by the hermeneutic situations of all involved: Insofar as the meaning of a text is rendered autonomous with respect to the subjective intention of its author, the essential question is not to recover, behind the text, the lost intention, but to unfold, in front of the text, the world which it opens up and discloses. In other words, the hermeneutical task is to discern the matter of the text (Gadamer) and not the psychology of its author (Ricoeur, 1981a, p. 111).

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Because the act of interpretation is the act whereby the interpreter enters the world that the text discloses in front of itself, the text, once written, has a career (Ricoeur, 1981c, p. 201) that escapes the finite horizon lived by its author. The text transcends its own psycho-sociological conditions of production and thereby opens itself to an unlimited series of readings, themselves situated in different socio-cultural conditions (Ricoeur, 1981b, p. 139). Gadamer (1989, p. 374) held that his aversion towards method in hermeneutics, along with his acknowledgement of the productive nature of human understanding, did not necessarily lead to an arbitrariness of interpretation. Gadamer offered a number of criteria for the strength of interpretations (Bildung, tact, judgement and the sensus communis) but these lie beyond the scope of the present reflections and are dealt with elsewhere (Sharkey, 1997, 1999). For his part, Ricoeur argued that the text provides a limited field of possible constructions and that some interpretations were superior to others. The task of interpretation is not to arrive at a possible reading of a text but to justify why the preferred interpretation is more probable than its alternatives (Ricoeur, 1981c, p. 213). Tracy (1981, p. 407) argued that relative adequacy was all that one could hope for when it came to interpretation. There was no such thing as the absolutely true interpretation, rather one can only hope to develop an understanding that was more relatively adequate than any of the alternatives. Lonergan (1971, p. 162) set a high standard when he held that the best interpretation was one that meets all relevant questions so that there are no further questions that can lead to further insights and so complement, qualify, correct the insights already possessed. Prejudice While Gadamer affirmed the open-ended, dynamic nature of human understanding, he also, somewhat paradoxically, affirmed prejudice as the precondition for understanding. The recognition that all understanding inevitably involves some prejudice gives the hermeneutical problem its real thrust (Gadamer, 1989, p. 270). For Gadamer, any analysis of the phenomenon of human understanding always needed to take into account the effects of history. Human understanding does not happen in a vacuum: it happens rather in a historical and cultural context and the effects of that context cannot be ignored. This historical context prejudices the interpreter in various ways. When an individual seeks to understand one of lifes expressions, he or she brings a certain orientation or pre-understanding about the expression that is to be interpreted and this orienta-

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tion, or pre-understanding (or prejudice in Gadamers terminology) shapes the interpretive process. The life expression is understood in a particular way because of the specific questions and pre-understandings brought to the event of understanding by the interpreter. One response to prejudice is to seek to nullify its effects: A person who believes he is free of prejudices, relying on the objectivity of his procedures and denying that he is himself conditioned by historical circumstances, experiences the power of the prejudices that unconsciously dominate him as a vis a tergo. A person who does not admit that he is dominated by prejudices will fail to see what manifests itself by their light (Gadamer, 1989, p. 360). One always understands an expression of life from within the context of a finite historical situation. One cannot know everything prior to the encounter with the text and nor can one approach a text from every angle and every perspective during the interpretative process. One approaches a text, rather, from a particular place with particular pre-understandings and questions. The situatedness of interpreters and the orientations of their questions shape what is known and understood during the interpretive process. Unless one acknowledges the situated and finite place that provides the context for ones knowing, one experiences the power of unacknowledged prior orientations, assumptions and judgements as a vis a tergoliterally a force from the backwhich catches the interpreter unawares and influences the process of interpretation accordingly. Gadamer argued that prejudices or prior understandings of the phenomenon being interpreted are not necessarily wrong, they are simply untested. He presented the hermeneutic task as one where productive prejudices are sorted from those that are unproductive. There is no way to separate in advance the productive prejudices that enable understanding from the unproductive prejudices that hinder understanding or lead to misunderstanding (Gadamer, 1989, p. 295). Gadamer acknowledged that the process of understanding may well be one where the interpreter unmasks and rejects a prejudice that was mistaken in some way, but the process may also result in an affirmation of the understanding that one began with. Reflection is not always and unavoidably a step toward dissolving prior convictions (Gadamer, 1967/1976, p. 289). The phenomenon of understanding, as it is described here, is an open, dynamic, and interactive process. There is a movement to-andfro, a movement from what the text seems to be saying back to the

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prejudices that one had about the subject matter of the text. There is a preparedness to believe that something else might be the case (van Ghent cited in Tracy, 1981, p. 102). The to-and-fro of the process of human understanding has characteristics that are not unlike play or the ebb and flow of conversation. Understanding as a fusion of horizons Gadamer described the phenomenon of human understanding as a fusion of horizons (1989, p. 306). Understanding takes place as a fusion between the horizon of the interpreter (always in a process of formation) and the horizon projected by the life expression being interpreted. For Gadamer, real understandingthe fusion of horizonsmeant regaining the concepts of a historical past in such a way that they also include our own comprehension of them (1989, p. 374). Gadamers insight is developed in the present reflections so that the fusion of horizons is a process that results in a new creation, a fusion created out of the encounter between the interpreter and the text being interpreted. Gadamer argued that the fusion of horizons is like a conversation where something is expressed that is not only mine or my authors but common (1989, p. 388). It is true to say that hermeneutic research seeks to understand the horizons being projected by the people and texts encountered in the field, but this in itself is not the whole project of hermeneutic research. Hermeneutic research is faithful to the horizons of the texts in the field, but it is also inclusive of the researchers own comprehension and interpretive insight. Worthwhile hermeneutic research engages genuinely (dialogically and playfully) with the research texts and aims to produce something of value and insight that is common to the researcher and author.

Why hermeneutic phenomenology?


The central task of phenomenologyto describe the phenomenon underneath subjective experienceremained a point of challenge for me throughout the program of research. I felt energised by the prospect of breaking through taken-for-granted meanings to encounter the phenomenon in a new and fresh way and then to convey the freshly encountered phenomenon to the reader via thickened and evocative language. I found the writings of hermeneutic phenomenologists like Gadamer and Ricoeur very challenging. They were challenging in their

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difficulty but they also became challenging at the level of the foundations of the research process and on the manner in which research ought to be conducted. The engagement with Gadamer in particular led to a fertile complex of questions and insights. Some of the alternative descriptions of qualitative research began to seem superficial when compared with what was being opened up in the conversation with philosophical hermeneutics. The engagement with Gadamer did not immediately lead to outcomes at a methodological level. In fact the paradox was that Gadamer was principally concerned with how to overthrow the tyranny of method in his own discipline. I found this paradox intriguing and, eventually, enlightening. At the heart of good research was not, in the first instance, a method or a procedure. Worthwhile research demanded that the researcher engage with the expressions of life being investigated and be reflective and responsive in that engagement in a way that culminates in understanding and insight. Van Manen called this capacity scholarship. Gadamer used words like tact, judgement, and taste to refer to the qualities that he believed were associated with authentic acts of interpretation and understanding. The insight that the meaning of expressions of life extends beyond the intentions of their authors seemed stimulating and worthwhile to me. The project of entering the world that a text would open up in front of itself was far more stimulating than the task of simply describing the world behind the textthe world of the author. The authors intention when writing the text is important enough, inasmuch as it can be grasped, but just as significant are the new meanings emerging during interpretationmeanings that are co-determined by the horizons of both the text being interpreted, and the horizons of those seeking to interpret and understand them. The researcher enters into conversation with the texts of the field in order to understand them. The researchers understanding is not reproductive or mimetic, but productive and creative, culminating in a fusion that includes the horizons of both the interpreter and the texts, but somehow is more than just the sum of these constituent parts. Gadamers emphasis on the pre-understandings of the interpreter also seemed insightful and important. The task of interpretation is not one of jettisoning ones prior understandings, it is rather one of discovering and testing them and rejecting or affirming them in the dialogical play of interpretation. New understandings inevitably emerge during the genuine conversation with the text, just as they do in the conduct of worthwhile programs of research.

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Finally, the presentation of understanding as a fusion of horizons threw light on the goal of the research process. As the researcher seeking a fusion of horizons, I was challenged to present an understanding that was not mine alone, nor the property of those I was studying but an understanding that was common to us botha new understanding that emerged in the middle space as the conversation that was the research process unfolded.

Moving from philosophy to engaged research


A distinction needs to be made between philosophical concerns and the engaged issues one faces as one actually goes to do the research. For example, van Manen (1996) distinguished between phenomenology as a branch of philosophy and engaged phenomenology as an endeavour in social science. Van Manen advises those wishing to engage in phenomenological research to read good phenomenological texts so that they can see what perceptive phenomenological material looks like. There is little chance that researchers will be able to engage in phenomenological research if they dont know what it looks or feels like. However, even after the researcher has developed a feel for the qualities of the phenomenological research end-product, many decisions still need to be made about the research process. The researcher has to settle on a research question, engage with the appropriate academic literature, locate possible sources of data relevant to the investigation, consider the ethical issues, establish rapport with any people involved, devise and maintain appropriate records, design and execute a data collection plan, conduct the analysis, draw conclusions and then represent the findings for the readers. There is a philosophical dimension to each of these tasks, but there are many practical dimensions as well. When it came to dealing with the practical questions associated with the conduct of the research, I found it instructive to engage with the more general qualitative research literature beyond phenomenology (for example, Miles & Huberman, 1994; Denzin & Lincoln, 1994; LeCompte, Millroy & Preissle, 1992). I found these texts particularly useful for thinking through issues associated with participant observation at the research site and also for the setting up and execution of research interviews. The advice given about record keeping during the research process was also most helpful. While I found it helpful to engage with the standard qualitative research literature, I also sought to stay closely connected with the

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goals of hermeneutic phenomenology. This was not always a straightforward matter. As the engagement unfolded, there were some contradictions that required resolution. As the contradictions were resolved, the methodological framework for the research was constructed. An example will help at this point. Miles and Huberman have been described as being at the scientific end of the qualitative research spectrum (Pitman & Maxwell, 1992, p. 732). The following exhortation that Miles and Huberman gave provides an example of their scientific approach: the log is crucial. The dictum is this: If it isnt on the documentation form or your original worksheets, you didnt do it. Avoid laundering or retrospective enlightenment. Do not let incomplete documentation forms pile upthat defeats your purposes. Do them as you go (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 286). While Miles and Huberman insist on the researcher avoiding retrospective enlightenment, the whole point of the research approach advocated by a hermeneutic phenomenologist like van Manen is to achieve such enlightenment. My own approach was to follow the disciplined participant observation note-taking procedures outlined by methodologists like Miles and Huberman, but to use those notes as grist for the phenomenological mill that turned throughout the program of research. The field notes and interview transcripts became increasingly important to me as the six-year research program unfolded, because they kept me close to the immediacy of what I saw and heard in the field. As I moved into the reflective mode of the analysis phase of the research program, I found it helpful to keep returning to the details of the places, events and people encountered in the course of the research. Many programs of qualitative research aim to faithfully represent what was found in the field. This form of qualitative research is essentially mimetic, as it seeks to reproduce for the reader what happened in the field. Phenomenological research seeks to move beyond the individual occurrences of a phenomenon to describe the phenomenon itself. Hermeneutic research understands that interpretation is always productive (rather than reproductive) and envisages the research process as culminating in a fusion of horizonsa fusion between the horizons of the texts being interpreted and the horizon of the interpreter. The fusion is creative and always holds more than the sum of both parts alone. Hermeneutic phenomenology challenges the researcher to reflect deeply on what it is that the texts of the field have to say. The researcher is called to play with the textsto get lost in deep conversation with them. The goal of this type of research is not to clone the

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texts of the field for the reader of the research but to invite the reader to enter the world that the texts would disclose and open up in front of them. This is not to denigrate mimetic forms of research which seek to reproduce the world of the field as accurately as possible for the reader. It is, rather, to describe a research approach that operates in a different mode of accuracy. The reader of phenomenological research is invited to transcend what is experienced on the surface to open up the universal quality or essence of the experience being depicted (van Manen, 1990, p. 97). Dening (1996, p. 110) distinguished between what actually happened and what really happened: I do not care so much about what really happened. About what actually happened, I do. For Dening, the real was like stilled frames on a film whereas the actual is given in a processual and unfinished mode where the researchers interpretation is voiced and discernible in the foreground of the research narrative. Two excerpts are provided below as examples of the hermeneutic phenomenology being described in these reflections. Both excerpts are taken from Sharkey (1999). The first contains two of a series of vignettes that were developed from research interviews conducted with nineteen teachers about their experiences as educators. The second is taken from a case narrative where the researcher reflected at length on his experiences as a change agent in a particular school.

Excerpt 1a pleasing teaching experience


Teacher 1 I saw him walking around in the middle of the quad, just going round in circles. He had not long returned to school after an illness. This was after lunch. So I picked him up. When we sat down and went into details, he was talking about the fact that he was being bullied and how he was being bullied. I grabbed about forty kids from the year level that I had identified one way or another and I just told them the story as it was about the students illness and how it had affected his life. There was absolute silence and the bullies identified themselves. And the positive part about it was that one of the kids came back to see me the next day and he was in tears and he had me in tears and he said he wouldnt have done it if he had known about the boys illness. Teacher 15 Normally students dont like doing theory because they see art as a practical subject but I remember this little kid when we were discussing something about an artist. His eyes just widened as if his eyes were going to pop out of his face, and his whole body

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motion came up and he might have even gone WOW. This moment happens very rarely where you can just see inspiration being just sucked in by the student. It was wonderful.

Excerpt 2the experience of being a change agent


After some work, we (the Anglesea people) felt that we were ready to run a training program for our leading teachers. Each campus was asked to make arrangements for the release of its leading teachers for the Friday of our training program so that they could spend it with us at a conference centre handy to the school. Not long after the staff release request had been issued, I was walking past the daily organisers office on some errand or other, and I was beckoned inside. The Daily Organiser asked for a list of the teachers from our campus who were to be taken away from the school for the training program. When I went through the names with him, he became concerned. How am I going to be able to cover the 21 teachers who will be absent from school on that day? he asked me. No answer came immediately to mind so I agreed with him that it was going to be difficult and conducted a strategic retreat. The Daily Organiser indicated that he would be taking the matter up with the Head of Campus. The Head of Campus held his nerve and so arrangements were made for the teachers to be released. Very soon after the letters of invitation were sent out, one of the Heads of Department wrote a terse and sarcastic letter to the Director of Studies pointing out that the seminar day would take him away from his teaching right at the time when his students needed to be revised for the end of year exam. He asked whether he could be excused from attending the training program. The Director of Studies shared her annoyance with me at the tone of his letter and she indicated that she was going to take the matter up with the Principal. The Principal called the Head of Department in and told him that the priority was for him to attend the conference. At around the same time, I was at a meeting on a completely unrelated matter and the Daily Organiser from one of the other campuses asked me whether it was possible for three teachers to be released for the seminar rather than the seven that we had asked for from his campus. He claimed that they would have to close their school for the day if all seven were released. I referred the matter to the Director of Studies who was also at the meeting. She indicated that she would add that to her list of agenda items for her meeting with the Principal. A few days later I received a phone call from the Head of Campus of the school in question and he gave me the names

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of five teachers who were being released. Although we had asked for seven teachers, I decided at that point to cut my losses and accept the list he had given me. After all of the problems we had in actually signing people up for the program, it was something of a relief when we were actually able to focus our energies on the program itself. The week leading into the seminar was an Exeat weekend which meant that the Monday and Tuesday were school holidays. This bunched up the organisation a little but we got there. On the program itself there was a good feeling among the presenting team with people taking initiatives easily and appropriately. The various presentations were well done with individuals obviously having put some thought into their examples. There was an effective use of humour and the content was stimulating in my opinion.

Comments
In both of these excerpts the intention was never to present verbatim sections of the interview transcripts or entries from the field notes. Rather, the intention was to invite the reader to enter the world that these texts would open up. This involved a thickened type of writing (van Manen, 1996) that sought to evoke the underlying essence of the phenomenon as it was encountered in the field. In the first excerpt each vignette was a brief paragraph that was distilled from many pages of interview transcript. The goal was to write a paragraph that communicated the soul of what it was that the teacher had to say. The goal was the same in the second excerpt. The case narrative again sought to get to the soul of the experience but this time the initial data for the phenomenological reflection were participant observation field notes, rather than transcripts of research interviews. Dening (1996) described the research process as culminating in a work of fiction. What he meant here was that researchers inevitably highlight certain events and leave other events out of their research narratives. The events of the field are selected according to some schema, seen from some vantage point and presented in a certain way. In this context, research is properly described as fictional, but it does not have to degenerate into fantasy. Research in the tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology seeks to genuinely engage with what happened in the field and to communicate the meaning and truth of what was encountered in that disclosive engagement. As such, it is a research approach that can be richly rewarding for those who embrace it.

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Notes
1

There are exceptions to this observation: for example, the work of Giorgi (1994), a North American psychologist who proposed a method that stayed much closer to steps elaborated by Husserl. There is no English equivalent for the collection of academic disciplines that comprise the Geisteswissenschaften. Begley (1996, p. 92) defined the Geisteswissenschaften as the spiritual, cultural, or human disciplines. Palmer (1969, p. 41) described the Geisteswissenschaften as all disciplines focused on understanding mans art, actions, and writings. Van Manen (1990, p.3) included under the umbrella of the human sciences the humanities and the arts along with symbolic interactionism, phenomenological sociology, ethnography, ethnomethodology, critical theory and gender study. Teigas (1995, p.195) defined the Geisteswissenschaften as being comprised of all the social and historical disciplines as distinct from the natural sciences. Teigas notes that the term also has a wider meaning where it includes literature, philosophy and the artsthat is, whatever springs from the mind. He argued that Gadamers use of the term was narrower than this though and did not include philosophy, the arts or literature. The word text once meant printed words on a page. Increasingly though, the word is used in a broader sense. Interpretation, as we understand it today, is applied not only to texts and verbal tradition, but to everything bequeathed to us by history; thus, for example, we will speak not only of the interpretation of an historical incident, but also the interpretation of spiritual and mimed expressions, the interpretation of behaviour and so forth (Gadamer, 1979, p. 111). Text is used in a broader sense in these reflections and includes every product of culture, including non-verbal records (Weinsheimer, 1991, p. 5).

References
Begley, John (1996), Modern Theories of Interpretation, Australian Catholic Record, vol. 73, no. 1, pp. 8191. Bergum, Vangie (1989), Woman to Mother: A Transformation, Bergin & Garvey Publishers, Granby. Crotty, Michael (1996), Phenomenology and Nursing Research, Churchill Livingstone, South Melbourne. Crusius, Timothy (1991), A Teachers Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics, National Council of Teachers of English, Illinois. Dening, Greg (1996), Performances, Melbourne University Press, Carlton. Denzin, Norman & Lincoln, Yvonna (eds) (1994), Handbook of Qualitative Research, Sage, Thousand Oaks. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1989), Truth and Method (2nd rev. English ed.) (Trans. J. Weinsheimer & D. Marshall), Continuum, New York. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1979), The Problem of Historical Consciousness. In P. Rabinow & W. Sullivan (eds), Interpretive Social Science: A Reader, University of California Press, Berkeley.

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Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1967/1976), On the Scope and Function of Hermeneutical Reflection. In D. Linge (ed.) Philosophical Hermeneutics, Hans-Georg Gadamer, University of California Press, Berkeley. Giorgi, Amedeo (1994), A Phenomenological Perspective on certain Qualitative Research Methods, Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 190220. Howard, Roy (1982), Three Faces of Hermeneutics: An Introduction to Current Theories of Understanding, University of California Press, Berkeley. Hultgren, Francine (1993), A Hermeneutic Challenge to the Methodological Mentality in Qualitative Inquiry, Journal of Vocational Education Research, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 2142. Husserl, Edmund (1990/1907), The Idea of Phenomenology (Trans William Alston & George Nakhnikian), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht. Kvale, Steinar (1996), InterViews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing, Sage, Thousand Oaks. LeCompte, Margaret, Millroy, Wendy; & Preissle, Judith (eds) (1992), The Handbook of Qualitative Research in Education, Academic Press Inc., New York. Lonergan, Bernard (1971), Method in Theology (2nd ed.), University of Toronto Press, Toronto. Miles, Matthew & Huberman, A. Michael (1994), Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook, (2nd ed.), Sage, California. Mishler, Elliot (1986), Research Interviewing: Context and Narrative, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Palmer, Richard (1969), Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer, Northwestern University Press, Evanston. Pitman, Mary-Anne & Maxwell, Joseph (1992), Qualitative Approaches to Evaluation: Models and Methods. In Margaret LeCompte, Wendy Millroy & Judith Preissle (eds), The Handbook of Qualitative Research in Education, Academic Press Inc., New York, pp. 72970. Ricoeur, Paul (1981a), Phenomenology and Hermeneutics. In J. Thompson (Trans. & ed.) Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 10130. Ricoeur, Paul (1981b), The Hermeneutical Function of Distanciation. In J. Thompson (Trans. & ed.) Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 13144. Ricoeur, Paul (1981c), The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as Text. In J. Thompson (Trans. & ed.), Hermeneutics

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and the Human Sciences, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 197221. Sharkey, Paul (1997), The Tactful Change Manager, Leading and Managing, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 12331. Sharkey, Paul (1999), The Ignatian Renewal: A Case Study of a Longterm, Multi-phase Process of Educational Change. PhD thesis, Department of Industry, Professional and Adult Education, RMIT University. Teigas, Demetruis (1995), Knowledge and Hermeneutic Understanding: A Study of the HabermasGadamer Debate, Associated University Presses, London. Thompson, John (1981), Critical Hermeneutics: A Study in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur and Jrgen Habermas, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Tracy, David (1981), The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism, The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York. van Manen, Max (1990), Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy, The State University of New York, New York. van Manen, Max (1991), The Tact of Teaching, State University of New York Press, Albany. van Manen, Max (1996), Method and Meaning in the Human Sciences. Paper presented at a conference at Newcastle University. Weinsheimer, Joel (1985), Gadamers Hermeneutics: A Reading of Truth and Method, Yale University Press, New Haven. Weinsheimer, Joel (1991), Philosophical Hermeneutics and Literary Theory, Yale University Press, New Haven.

CHAPTER 3

A Journey towards Catching Phenomenology


Gloria Latham
Its all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how we fit in is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story (Thomas Berry, 1988). Ultimately research is about unlocking the doors of aspects of the world hidden from us by crafting a compelling story that is useful, rigorous and credible. As I approached my doctoral study four years ago, I was hopeful that my research would strengthen the fabric for a new story of humanity. The research was an attempt to better understand our moral relationship with the world and to discover a story we can journey towards.

The research question


The study explored what understanding the world was like for children. I was seeking to understand how children, five to seven years of age, in concert with others, think and make use of narrative elements to explain the world and their place in it; how they believe the world evolved and their ability to articulate what they know. There were also critical reflections made on the dynamics of the research experience: what is it like to try and understand childrens views? what texts are available to me to establish empathy? how am I altered by the research? Alongside the questions we as researchers seek to answer exists the times in which we live and the relevance of our research to those times. Almost twenty years ago Baudrillard (1988) warned that We live in a universe where there is more and more information and less and less meaning (p. 95). Since this unheeded warning, we have produced a far greater mass of information further constraining our inner
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search for meaning. Many of us have become estranged from ourselves and the natural world we inhabit. There is a longing to reclaim meaning in the everydayness of the world and to rekindle the sense of wonder once held as a child. There appears to be growing recognition of what has disappeared from our lives in the technocratic age. Many individuals are yearning for a far less rational world than the one provided by the natural science model. Heidegger (1977) calls technology a destitute time, the time of the worlds night. In this time many are facing a deep abyss, with feelings of emptiness and longing. Technology, as an organising force, is pulling us away from the essence, the centre of meaning. Although philosophical ideals will not be able to address all of our concerns, they may well have the power to help us illuminate some of the everyday things in our lives which have become commonplace. We are aware that the world view we construct impacts greatly on our web of connectedness with the natural world. In order to journey towards this connectedness, I felt it necessary to re-turn to the season of childhood for children are in-tune with the world, in harmony with her music. Children find the world paradoxical and strange thus driving their inner search to make meaning. In middle childhood, they are at a juncture between the world experienced and the world behind screens. Therefore it is a time in childrens lives most worthy of study. Hughes (1989) reminds us: Every new child is natures chance to correct cultures error. Children are most sensitive to the inner world, because they are the least conditioned to scientific objectivity to life in the camera lensthey want to escape the ugliness of the despiritualised world in which they see their parents imprisoned (p. 170). Children go beyond biological fulfilment and maturation in order to add novelty to the environment (Cobb, 1977). Thus the doctoral research sought to understand the world, the home children live in so that I might find some direction regarding what is significant in the common everyday things in my own life. Langeveld (1984) believes that no one roams through and into the world so free and unguarded as a child: The childs ecological sense of continuity with nature is not what is generally known as mystical. It is as if it were a fairytale forest, so ventures the child into the world, lured by the

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charm of all that is new, unfamiliar and pleasant. For the world seems pleasant and full of promises. Not senseless but also not familiar: everything seems possible, so there exists, as yet, no nonsense (meaninglessness) (p. 215). Ecology is made up of two Greek words, Eco (an abbreviated form of oikos) meaning home, either a human home or home of the gods, and logos the study of home. As the world under scrutiny is home, I was forging an ecological search to find home as young children experience it. Heidegger (1975) saw the poets life as a homecoming. The work of art is active, revealing both the life of the poem and the life of the poet as she travels away and then returns to the phenomenon. Therefore my journey has been a search to reclaim the world, to return to an earlier time in life in order to reveal that which has gone astray. If we have become alienated from home, estranged from it because we are allowing ourselves to be ruled by its forces, we stand apart from it. This alienation has transpired because our actions and forces have become estranged from us. Since all lessons in enchantment turn to nature, we too must re-turn in order to re-enchant our lives (Moore, 1996) and to claim a treasured place. The focus of the turn to phenomenology was the modernist movement, which Weber (1968, p. 52) described as utterly rational, as it was bound to intellectually analysable rules. Weber felt that the world had been robbed of its magic, and suggested that the robber was bureaucratisation. With the magic gone, Weber was convinced that humankind had become disenchanted. The study was a search to reclaim this enchantment.

Moving into phenomenology


In the preliminary stages of the study, I roamed in streams of possibilities as to how I might engage in the research. I travelled, read and talked through my ideas with family members, friends and colleagues. This preliminary stage is useful as it helps to clarify the parameters of the research before plunging in. One colleague in the Nursing faculty at RMIT University suggested I take part in a two-day intensive workshop on campus on phenomenology presented by the Norwegian scholar Max van Manen. This colleague felt certain that I might find a connection between my research question and his qualitative philosophical approach. Although the workshop was mainly focused on Nursing research I felt that phenomenology appeared to be suited to my educational research enterprise. While many of the

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philosophical ideas presented were foreign to me, the notion of the researcher working to enter the lived experience, along with the task of bringing that experience into being through rigorous writing and re-writing, well aligned itself to my philosophical beliefs as a teacher/researcher. In embracing phenomenological ideals I understood that I had embarked on an arduous journey. Psathas (1973) believes the traveller must begin in silence. The silence is the struggle to see the phenomenon as clearly as possible and as these are given in ones own consciousness of those things (p. 13). The challenge for the researcher is to keep the meaning in the phenomenon not in ones head but in ones eyes. For the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. Following the van Manen workshop, I began reading and studying a wide range of texts on phenomenology but soon found myself hopelessly lost in a sea of unfamiliar discourse in a vast and deep ocean of knowledge. Phenomenology was a far larger and more complex entity than I had first imagined. Spiegelberg (1982), who wrote a history of the phenomenological movement, prefers to look upon the philosophy less as a formal movement and more as a moving, dynamic force. This force resists being caught and asks the researcher to rejoice in being led by the things themselves. Engaging in traditional existential phenomenology has allowed me to pursue the ontology of the world with a narrative voice and elicit changes in my own perceptions, as well as describe and interpret the lived experience. As an ontological study, I hoped to discover embodied meaning by asking questions to deepen the thoughts of children and enable empathic responses such as, How did that make you feel? The nature of the questions one asks has profound implications on the texts one acquires.

Reading the literature


Glesne and Peshkin (1989) suggest that researchers conducting a literature review cast a wide net (p. 18) in order to gain an array of views. I readily accepted their premise yet the concern throughout the study was determining exactly what literature one catches and with what bait? As researcher, I was often tugged in many directions. Thus, at times I was the one who fished and at other times I became the catch. Many tensions presented themselves to me during the investigation. Storytellers who ventured before me had marvelled at young

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childrens propensity for wondering about the world. However, I knew if I travelled solely as an academic, I would only seek out scholarly scientific studies. It was also necessary to move as a magician and discover the stories of the Shaman. Both forms of knowing were immensely useful and provided a wide range of possibilities. It is well to remember that all scientific wondering begins in story. There is also a harmony between myth and experience and logos; logos, the grammar of experience, and mythos, the grammar of myth, complement each other (Bruner, 1962). Each view of life added to the meaning which was unfolding.

Approaches to phenomenology
There have been various schools of thought about phenomenology with a consequent array of interpretations and directionsin countries such as Germany, France, the United States, Canada and the Netherlands and in a wide array of disciplines such as psychology, natural science, anthropology, linguistics, narrative study and philosophy. The dilemma was not merely deciding what I should read or what movement I might follow but also when I should read in order to remain open to the life-world before me. Fortunately, my literature search into phenomenology was guided in part by Michael Crotty, a scholar at Flinders University, who became a critical friend and mentor as I travelled the rough terrain into phenomenology. His wisdom and generosity were invaluable in helping to navigate a path. Through our email exchanges, I was encouraged to pursue a critical spirit he found lacking in many phenomenological enterprises and to carefully examine the cultural baggage I carried with me into the lived experience. Crotty reminded me that When people tell their stories, there are many voices speaking through their words (email correspondence, 12/4/97). To assist in un-earthing lifes multi-layered narratives, I decided to keep two journals; one as the researcher and one for the research in order to raise, to a fuller conscious level, those events which have shaped my life and to place them alongside those of the children in the study. As well, I maintained autobiographical writing in order to raise prior assumptions so that I might better become lost in the livedworld. This autobiographical writing was re-formed into overtures to each chapter of the thesis. While aberrant thoughts often surface in the stories remembered and heard, these stories define who we are and therefore my life and the life-world of the children remained parallel and interwoven studies.

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Phenomenology and pedagogy


Phenomenology is well suited to pedagogical concerns. Like creating a work of art, teaching can be thought of as allegorical knowing (Greek allosother + agoreueinto manifest in the agora or assembly). Van Manen (1990, p. 2) believes that all educators should pursue a phenomenological sensitivity to lived experience in order to see the significance of the phenomenon and to find a language to allow the research process of textual reflection to contribute to ones pedagogic thoughtfulness and tact. This thoughtfulness is born of our immediate contact with the things themselves rather than deriving from a theoretical base. Phenomenologists see knowledge as active. In a letter, Arendt wrote: The chief fallacy is to believe that truth is a result which comes at the end of the thought process. Truth on the contrary, is always the beginning of thought. Thinking starts after an experience of truth has struck home, so to speak. The difference between philosophers and other people is that the former refuse to let go, but not that they are the only receptacles of truth. Truth, in other words, is not in thought but the king. It is both a beginning and a priori (Brightman, 1995, pp. 245). Thus knowledge is never complete. The researcher seeks a thoughtful relationship with the phenomenon. All understanding and its significance lie in how the experience creates body knowledge rather than merely mind knowledge. Dilthey (1976) suggests that in natural science we explain nature, but in human science it must be understood. Although educators tell us that they learn best about teaching by engaging in the practice, it is important to differentiate between having the experience of teaching and being in the experience to reveal understanding. It is particularly difficult to surrender to the experience as the teaching profession is saturated in the metaphors society has endowed it with and which teachers often blindly reproduce. Arendt (1958), Bauer & Vannice (1992), Dewey (1954) and Greene (1973), among others, discuss the difficulties inherent in fixed metaphors of teaching. Teachers need to break through the crust of conventionalised and routine consciousness (Dewey, 1954, p. 183) and return to common-sense thinking as they can become complacent and easily lulled into an intellectual apathy, falling victim to hopeless confusion or merely repeating truths which have become empty and trivial (Arendt, 1958).

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It seems that engaging in phenomenology can assist educators in perceiving phenomena in new ways and that this enables them to trust many of their own intuitive judgements. In my capacity as an educator with over twenty-five years of classroom experience, the prospect of surrendering to the world under investigation appeared more daunting. Engaging in phenomenology meant a further shift in my conception of the educators role and a dramatic shift in societys conception of its educators, cloning them with metaphors such as gardener and, more recently, manufacturer. Both of these enduring metaphors cast the educator in the role of one who leads rather than one who is being led. As a child, I had been exposed to a rigid style of education and although I have since rejected many of the doctrines they remain deeply embedded. My teacher training course at university was also traditional in nature, defining the teacher as someone who is skilled at controlling classroom events and functions as the sole dispenser of knowledge. The fear was not of losing my sense of control while working with the children but rather of being out of control with the experience, a stranger utterly lost in the life-world. Allowing oneself to feel lost, surrendering to the experience, is both a terrifying and exhilarating experience. It is terrifying as one is letting go of the known often without a safety net to soften the fall. Yet it is also exhilarating because one is experiencing the world as if for the first time less encumbered and more open. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad (1990) captures this feeling time and time again when relating Marlows journey into the unknown: We were wanderers on prehistoric earth, on the earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantomsWe could not understand because we were too far and could not remember, because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone leaving hardly a signand no memories (Conrad, 1990, pp. 1856). An additional uncertainty throughout the study was that of coveting the embodied meaning of the experience under investigation.

Literary guides
As phenomenology provides no fixed map in which to traverse the circuitous path, direction was often found in literary works. Machado (1982, p. 143), the Spanish poet, writes, Se hace camino al undar, You make the way as you go. Thus, the research path is guided by the

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phenomena being studied. As each investigation is unique, so too are the paths taken. In The Alchemist, Coelho (1995, p. 80) expresses the notion that, Once you go into the desert, theres no going back and when you cant go back, you have to worry about the best way of moving forward. These words were understood on an intellectual level and the notion that I would learn about phenomenology while engaging in it welcomed, yet it was far more difficult to realise. It was necessary to work diligently to surrender to the experiences which transpired and be led by the phenomena.

Active engagement
In order to help the reader better understand the struggle undertaken to enter and be a part of the life-world, I will endeavour to relate my journey towards active engagement. Implicit in the notion of learning from children is the ability to listen to them in valued ways. I noted that several entries in my professional journals over the years have addressed the need to improve my listening skills yet little had changed. In order to benefit fully from the childrens discussions I felt the need to devise specific ways in which I could listen attentively. Firstly, it meant shifting the balance of power towards a more equal footing. Graves (1990) suggests that if we think we are better than the horned toad we will never hear its voice. Laying aside my teacher role proved difficult yet it was necessary to present myself to the children as merely another traveller who wonders about the world. I also attempted to lay aside what I knew about the phenomenon in order to listen to the thoughts which unfolded. I was well aware that I had formed established ways of taking in information whereby, when listening to others, I immediately compared it to something known. In so doing, I was in danger of homogenising the ideas presented; reducing them to their simplest and most recognised form. In order to come to understand the phenomena under investigation, it was essential that I treated all the young childrens thoughts as novel, something never heard before. In so doing, I was elevating their thoughts to new heights, rendering their ideas as works of art. It was also necessary to lay aside expectations of what the children might say, to remain, as far as possible, open to their thoughts and at the beginning of their knowing. One of my journal entries illuminates the struggle: I suppose what one must keep constant in this study is the uncertaintythe reminder that if one knows or even thinks one knows

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there is little point in undertaking the task. Michael Crotty asks me to lay suspicion in my path. I wonder if this is what I need or uncertainty. Suspicion indicates doubt and I do not feel this is what I wantCan I actually place my beliefs in abeyance? How do I even hope to do this? (11/4/97). The children set the topic for each discussion about the world. They would enter the little room with an air of excitement and seat themselves at the table, pick up a pen or pencil and begin to make marks on the paper-covered table. What should we talk about today?, a child would ask. I would reply, What do you wonder about today? Then off they would go, steeped in wondering and the discussion would begin to shape itself. The young children quickly became storytellers relating tales of the earths beginnings. I often asked them to take on the roles of others such as indigenous people, scientists and reporters. The children easily slipped into their roles and adjusted their language accordingly. For instance, in the following, Daniel began his talk as a scientist: Well, millions and millions of years ago, before Heaven was even invented, before all the planets and stars and the moon and the sun were around there was a huge ball of fire out in space and a rock was lit and it got so hot up in space that the rock grew bigger and bigger and bigger until it was almost ten times larger than the sun and the Sun rushed out and hit that stone and it went flying through space and then stopped where the earth is now. Then, suddenly, the temperature of the earth started to cool down and a white liquid flew up to that planet earth and made spaces between the blue oceans. One story led to the next until the group members were filled with an abundance of stories offering varying interpretations of the earths beginnings from a wide array of perspectives. I placed a tape recorder on the table in order to return to the transactions and took only mental notes until after the children left the room. I worked to listen with four ears, and to watch with four eyes: one set as researcher and one set as participant. Each day after the discussions ended and the children returned to their classrooms, I would sit in the little room attempting to record the physical-ness that occurred in the little room. The gestures and facial expressions, the mood, the swaying and silences of individuals and the group not recorded on the tape.

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As I listened to the tapes later in the day I often found there was too much of my own voice directing the discussion, and I worked harder the next day to be guided by the children. I also found that the taped voices were hollow without the faces and bodily gestures of the children. Yet listening to the tapes over and over again allowed me to hold the children in aural and visual memory, and the transcripts of their words were almost cinematic documentaries played back to me. I transcribed the tapes directly after the experience, so that I could hold the moments within them more closely. At times the images and the voiced thoughts were contradictory. For instance, Warren would express sophisticated ideas about the World and then suck his thumb while he sat back and listened to his peers. Steven, who explained the beginning of electricity in some detail, was drawing and labelling a model when he asked me how to spell there. The other children looked up at him in disbelief as the ideas Steven expressed were highly complex. So there were a great many challenges to reconcile. Learning how to listen and enter the experience was guided in part by the writings of physicians such as William Carlos Williams and Robert Coles. In his extensive work with children, psychiatrist Coles (1990) suggests that opening up lines of friendship and allowing children to own their ideas helps them open up the world of childhood. Coles says: Each child becomes an authority and all the meetings become occasions for the teacherthe childto offer, gradually a lesson. My job is to listen of course and to recordMy job is also to put in enough time to enable a child like the Hopi girl to have her sayto reveal a side of herself not easily tapped even by good schoolteachers (p. 27). The Hopi girl felt she could not tell her teacher what she had told Coles as she felt that her teacher would not understand. She said, We tried that a long time ago; our people spoke to the Anglos and told them what we think, but they dont listen to hear us; they listen to hear themselves (Coles, 1990, p. 25). Clearly implied in these sentiments are two important lessons. The first is temporal and concerns the need to wait patiently and allow time to let the story of each child surface. The second is to remain cognisant of the great cultural chasm that exists between oneself and others in terms of mood, thoughts, work habits, trust and orientation to the world. Thus my understanding of young childrens

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ideas about the natural world might differ considerably from their own understanding. I felt the need to continually ask clarifying questions to reach the heart of their thoughts as well as ask the children to reiterate their ideas.

Silent wisdom
Long stammering, stuttering and silences are necessary for children as they struggle to articulate monumental issues about the world. I began to think of stammering, stuttering and silence as potential and worked to preserve it as sacred ground belonging to the speaker. Speech rises out of silence and returns to silence (Bollnow, 1982). It needs to be listened to. Van Manen (1990, pp. 11214) discusses different kinds of silences. The first is literal silence, the absence of speech. Out of these silences often comes the most reflective thought. The second type of silence is epistemological which is when the individual faces something she is incapable of describing. Here lies what Polanyi (1958, 1959) describes as tacit knowing; knowing more than we can articulate, the silence of the unspeakable. In this case it is necessary for the researcher to become an active listener, employing a third ear so to speak to capture the essence of experience in the absence of vocabulary. Often facial expression, body language and in particular paralanguage such as pauses, silences, hesitancies, tone and pitch are signals that indicate a need for assistance and further attention (Wichroski, 1997, p. 272). Thirdly, there is ontological silence: the silence of life itself. Bollnow (1982) describes this as being in the presence of truth. As researcher, I needed to try and listen for these differing silences and discover the treasures hidden under the surface of spoken thought. Thus silence has multiple meanings. It must also be appreciated that silence has differing cultural values. Graves (1990, p. 83) explains that he listens with two ears: to the words of children speaking and to his own inner voice. As I worked with the children in the little room, and listened repeatedly to the tapes, I worked towards listening in this dual focused way. I listened to their words and beneath their words. I tried to listen to the silence, the laughter and sorrow. I listened for pain and joy in the voices of the young children. It was also essential to listen and become aware of the numerous voices within me and what my voices brought to the community of thinkers. Shafer (1977, p. 215) argues that, although a community can be defined in many ways (political, geographical, religious or a social entity), he favours an acoustical community. Sound is the way in which inhabitants receive information. For instance, Shafer

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reminds us that human settlements were grouped by determining the shouting distance from one another in case of an attack and, in his Republic, Plato defined the ideal community as the number of people who could be heard by a single orator. Thus, the size of a community is often determined by how its members are heard. Acknowledging the importance of an acoustical community meant selecting small groups of no more than four or five children so that the thoughts unstruck, and those struck, could be heard and treasured.

The topography of language: In praise of thoughts spoken


As I entered the life-world of young children I listened to their symphonies. Their voice and body maps were magical in their creation, allowing me to learn in ways not possible in written discourse. This was due in part to the childrens inability to compose on paper. Yet it was far more than this. Spoken language allowed me to hear the words chosen rather than the words refined, the words invented rather than the words already lying in waiting. I was present at the gestation of their thoughts, the silences and stutterings right through to the birth, the Genesis, of their ideas. Their eyes would flicker and dance with possibilities and the sweet breath of their thoughts would fill the air. They often composed ideas in harmony with others and, in those moments between them, a creation of shared meanings was discovered and celebrated. At other times the childrens voices composed a cacophony of dissonant sounds, fighting to be heard and understood. The fragility of their thoughts would flutter out and tickle them with such surprise that they would laugh and say, I didnt even know I thought that! I was ear and eye witness to the opaqueness of the feelings behind the words, the low whispered sounds of a sorrowful lament about the loss of nature met head on with a rush of excited high-pitched twitterings when they had found a nesting place. Their bodies moved in harmony with their feelings. Yet being in their world was far more than this. Robust philosophical thoughts emerged from the lips of these five-, six- and seven-year olds. They were immensely curious about the world and their place in it. The spoken word allowed them to express this curiosity. The words uttered were fleeting lessons floating upwards and scattering outwards, often out of ears reach and out of

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hands touch. As an audience for their ideas I had to labour hard to catch their thoughts and then to elevate them. At the border crossings between their minds and bodies, their melodic tones engendered a light rain of shivers within me. These were thoughts to be marvelled at and to be reckoned with. Yet the spoken thoughts were far more than this. Through the spoken word, we inhabited the same time and space. We shared a common landscape and entered into language familiar to that location. The words were impermanent on the landscape, flying away as fast as they were uttered. We were in the moment together. And as we sat on the breathing ground that gave birth to their stories, we were inextricably bound. The stories tapped out the rhythms that muttered the words, that uttered the silence that fluttered the heartbeats of our earthly duets. The world of young children was already pregnant with meaning before its presence was known to me, yet it remained veiled and dark. Through the symphonies, brought forth by the children, a transformation occurred which lifted the veil of uncertainty and offered forth textured, evocative meaning. But meaning plays tricks as it often withdraws and hides itself. The researcher, as poet, must search for the sounds in unsuspecting places. Okri (1997, p. 1) believes, that in the hands of the poet, the world is resistant. Poets need to search in the darkness where no one else travels and, if they ultimately find the secrets, they must labour to sing the world and themselves into being. This has been the struggle but also the rich reward. There is great wisdom in the natural ways of children, if only we could learn to listen. Our sense of alienation from them can ease if we enter their Life. For young children not only hold onto our stories, they also hold on to our lost humanity.

Walking towards understanding


As I worked with the texts of the lived-world, I frequently related my search to the Aboriginals search for their songlines. Melos is the Greek word for limb, hence the word melody. Aborigines are earth bound. They are both in the world and a part of it. Rather than observers they remain participants. In similar ways, a phenomenological search is earth bound as researchers are participants rather than observers in the lived world under investigation. The task is to evoke a primal telling in an original voice, For most of my life, walking has been my main mode of transport. When I tread the earth, there exists a spiritual harmony between

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mind and body. The Romans used the expression, Solvitur ambulando, which means solve it by walking. Husserl (1931, pp. 2456) believes that walking is a way in which a core world is built up out of fragmentary appearances. He suggests that the near sphere of familiar and accessible appearances and the far sphere of inaccessible, unfamiliar appearances are brought together in a spatio-temporal ensemble when one walks. Walking, he suggests: illuminat{es} the history of how one builds up a coherent core world out of fragmentary appearances that takes in isolated groupings and the far sphere of the unfamiliar and unknown things. The disperate appearances of both spheres are brought together in one unified spatio temporal ensemble (zusammen) every time I take up the simple act of walking (Husserl, 1931, p. 224). At times I tread, other times I might have sauntered or plodded along, but all the time I tried to reopen my senses to the world and grasp its mysteries and wonders as I looked down at the sky and listened to it singing. Some derive the word saunter from the word sans terre, without land or home, therefore in the good sense, [it] will mean having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere (Thoreau, 1968, p. 5). Experiencing the world on foot is compelling for the senses are awakened and I often find myself in stunned wonderment at my surroundings. My mind is also active during these walks and ideas spring forth with ease while confusion lessens. As researcher, I went on an extensive mindwalk searching for the keys to unlock the mansions so that I could write a compelling story. I found that, once on a leisurely stroll, I was propelled down circuitous paths into the face of unforeseen sunbeams and shadows. Some of the thoughts eventually hatched into songbirds while others lie in perpetual incubation. There will always remain tender, encased beings unwilling to sound forth their outer selves no matter how hard and how often I strive to unlock their mysterious music. As I walk every day, I try to make my connection to the earth more powerful. Yet I fear I live more inside my head than outside it. So many things pass me by even when I am walking near them. Annie Dillard talks about moving from sight into insight. It is all about keeping my senses open as I walk. As a traveller who has lived and worked in three different countriesAmerica, Canada and AustraliaI have wandered in the unknown and developed ways of acquiring greater cultural under-

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standing. Consequently, from my former experience as a traveller and one who has written and talked about the importance of learning about life from outside the walls of the classroom (Latham, 1993, 1996), I felt some comfort in embracing phenomenological ideals. Observing life around me was part of my survival. Yet admittedly, once the surrounds were made understandable, the need to observe and record them lessened.

Interrogating the texts


The act of capturing the richness of the everydayness of the world of young children was a daunting task. The act of handling language differs significantly between methodologies when one writes up the research. In natural science investigations the researcher writes up the findings. In human science, however, the research itself is a form of writing. The writing is, as van Manen (1990) suggests, the object of the phenomenological research. One seeks to create a descriptive and interpretive text which raises the everydayness of the world to poetic heights. Although I take great pleasure in writing, I found having to reinterpret the lived world in all its fullness, utilising the poetic voice, an onerous task. Gillan (1973, pp. 612) cautions researchers about the problems they will face: The phenomenon seeks to be understood yet the language is already sedimented with past history and the task becomes finding the means to sing the lived experience in a new way. I found myself searching for the words which would unlock the secrets of the world and bring them out of the darkness. In order to work towards enabling writing, it was necessary to reorient myself to a phenomenological outlook of the world already teeming with embodied meaning. Denzin (2000) responds to the material presence of words and their effect on people. He sees the goal of qualitative writing as a means of bringing people together through loving, moral texts which are utopian. The text imagines how the world could be as well as describing how it is. Metaphoric language assisted this enterprise by generating quantum leaps of meaning. Rising out of modernism, the metaphor allows a fuller understanding of the senses. Ricoeur (1981) believes the metaphor not only generates meaning but also changes the world. A number of metaphors (singing, weaving, flying) were employed in the research narrative to evoke a vista of hope by revealing childrens world. As I approach the end of the research story, I continue to struggle to catch the poetising project of phenomenology. The long, circuitous

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journey took me on an intensive mind and body walk which led me to question more than ever before and to render the world paradoxical so that new understandings may one day come into being.

References
Arendt, H. (1958), The Human Condition, Doubleday Anchor Books, Garden City, New York. Baudrillard, J. (1988), In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities or the End of the Social (Trans. P. Foss, P. Patton & J. Johnson), Senro texte (e), New York. Bauer, D. H. & Varnice, C. K. (1992), Teaching as the Art of Living, The Educational Forum, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 42133. Berry, T. (1988), The Dream of the Earth, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco. Bruner, J. (1962), On Knowing, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Brightman, C. (ed.) (1995), Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy, Secker & Warburg, London. Chatwin, B. (1987), Songlines, Jonathan Cape, Great Britain. Cobb, E. (1977), The Ecology of Childhood, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. Coelho, P. (1995), The Alchemist, Harper Collins, New York. Coles, R. (1990), The Inner Life of Children: The Spiritual Life of Children, Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Conrad, J. (1990), Heart of Darkness and other Tales, Oxford University Press, Great Britain. Denzin, N. K. (2000), Aesthetics and the Practices of Qualitative Inquiry, Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 25665. Dewey, J. (1954), Art as Experience, Minton Balch, New York. Dillard, A. (1990), Three by Annie Dillard, Harper & Row, New York. Dilthey, W. (1976), Dilthey: Selected Readings (ed. H. P. Rickman), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Gillan, G. (1973), The Horizons of the Flesh, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, Illinois. Glesne, C. and Peshkin, A. (1992), Becoming Qualitative Researchers: An Introduction, Longman, White Plains, New York. Graves, D. (1990), Discover your own Literacy, Heinemann, Portsmouth. Greene, M. (1973), Teacher as Stranger, Wadsworth Publishing Company, Belmont, California. Heidegger, M. (1949), Existence and Being (ed. W. Brock), Reginery, Chicago. Heidegger, M. (1975), Poetry, Language and Thought, Harper & Row, New York.

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Heidegger, M. (1977), The Question Concerning Technology. In W. Lovitt (Trans. & ed.), The Question Concerning Technology and other Essays, Harper & Row, New York, pp. 335. Hughes, T. (1989), Myth and Education. In P. Abbs (ed.), The Symbolic Order: A Contemporary Reader on the Arts Debate, Falmer Press, London. Husserl, E. (1913/1931), Ideas: A General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (Trans. W. R. Boyce Gibson), Humanities Press, New York. Langeveld, M. J. (1984), How does the Child Experience the World of Things?, Phenomenology and Pedagogy, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 21523. Latham, G. (1993), When the Lolly Jars Half Empty, Primary Education, vol. 24, no. 6, pp. 201. Latham, G. (1996), Fostering and Preserving Wonderment, Australian Journal of Early Childhood, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 1215. Machado, A. (1982), Selected Poems (Trans. A. S. Trueblood), Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Merleau Ponty, M. (1964), The Primacy of Perception, Northwestern University Press, Evanston. Okri, B. (1997), A Way of Being Free, Orion Books, London. Polanyi, M. (1958, 1959), Personal Knowledge, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Psathas, G. (1973), Phenomenological Sociology, John Wiley & Sons, London. Ricoeur, P. (1981), Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, Cambridge University Press, New York. Shafer, R. M. (1977), The Tuning of the World. Indian River, Ontario: Arcana Editions. Spiegelberg, H. (1982), The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction (3rd ed.), Martinus Nijhoff, Boston. Thoreau, D. (1968), Walking. In B. Torrey & F. Allen (eds), The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, volume 5, Excursions and Poems, AMS Press, New York. van Manen, M. (1990), Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy, State University of New York Press, Albany. Weber, M. (1968), On Charisma and Institution Building (Ed. S. N. Eisenstadt), University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Wichroski, M. A. (1997), Breaking Silence: Some Fieldwork Strategies in Cloistered and non-cloistered Communities. In R. Hertz (ed.), Reflexivity and Voice, Sage, Thousand Oaks.

CHAPTER 4

Finding a Way through the Maze


Anthony J. Welch
Entering the sphere of research is for the majority of aspirants a daunting journey into a world replete with ambiguity, uncertainty, demand for scientific precision, and philosophical debate. For the neophyte researcher, the yellow brick road to inquiry is not as clear-cut as that represented in the fairy tale depicted in the film, The Wizard of Oz. This paper presents a fusion of my experiences of being involved in phenomenological inquiry as student, researcher, and supervisor. I have endeavoured to distil these experiences and present them as one persons journey, in the hope of providing the reader with a personal account of what it is like to engage in research.

Finding a focus for the study


In recent years I have become increasingly interested in the state of mens health within contemporary society, in particular, in male depression. From my perspective, the state of mens health has received little acknowledgement by either government or the general community. Sporadic attention to the physical and psychological needs of men through media releases seemed to me to be an exercise in tokenism with little, if any, consideration of the potential risks to mens health. When depression became an issue of national concern in the late 1990s especially among male adolescents, I initially sensed that this was the area of inquiry for me. Being a male working in the area of mental health, I have witnessed the devastating effects of depression not only on individuals, but also on their family, significant others and their wider community of friends. Over the years I have cared for countless people living with depression and have been privileged on many occasions to be invited into their lived world of suffering and despair. As witness and carer, I became increasingly conscious of the pernicious nature of this condition and the life of pain veiled amid a daily struggle to survive. What I learnt from these experiences was that, amid turmoil, desolation,
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despair, self-doubt and confusion, each person appeared to be engaged in a process of forging a pathway through the darkness of depression. Up to this time I had considered depression to be a condition for which little could be done. I also sensed that the majority of the community at large harboured similar feelings. The only recourse at this time to either prove or disprove my personal beliefs was to seek evidence from other sources. A cursory review of literature, poetry, music and artwork convinced me that depression is generally viewed by contemporary society as a state in which the person is caught in a vexing spiral of negativity and pain from which escape is virtually impossible. Initially, I thought depression was a social malaise of the twentieth century but, as I explored the raft of material, I gradually came to realise that depression was not a phenomenon of contemporary society but, rather, has been a part of human history repeatedly portrayed in poetry (Keats; Eliot, 1953), literature (Burton, 1651; Kierkegaard, 1979; Styron, 1990), music in the form of the blues (Sarah Vaughan) and art (Degas and van Gogh). As I pondered the nature of depression, I began to contest some of my earlier ideas that depression as a mental health problem is, virtually without exception, a negative experience. The potential for people to transcend this difficult time in moving forward in life seemed to be virtually ignored, with little credence given to such a possibility. However, in my experience as a health care professional and in my personal life, I had also seen many people from all works of life take up the gauntlet of depression and move beyond the cacophony of negative emotions and thoughts. The potential for people to work through such difficult times therefore became the focus of my interest. Once I had decided on the phenomenon for exploration, my next concern was how to approach the study. Although I was clear in my determination to explore mens experiences of depression, I was not clear how to do it. I therefore began to explore the world of empirical argument which suggested that quantitative research was the only legitimate way to generate knowledge useful in advancing human understanding. However, the philosophical position and methods of inquiry adopted by such a tradition were not in keeping with my own belief system. From my perspective, the world of positivism was unable to provide an appropriate avenue for exploring the everyday lived world of people in all its richness and complexity. I therefore realised that I needed to explore alternative ways by which peoples experiencesthat is, men living with depressioncould be comprehended in a meaningful way.

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Locating a philosophical approach to inquiry


Beginning the actual research journey was not an easy task. I spent considerable time musing over different approaches to qualitative inquiry, ranging from grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1979) to the post-structural notions of Derrida (1983), Deleuze (1988) and Foucault (1980), in what became a desperate and convoluted search for an appropriate research method. As I clawed my way through the labyrinth of different approaches and philosophical positions underpinning each method, which was both an enriching and informative experience, I became increasingly convinced that phenomenology, as both a philosophy and an approach to inquiry, was an appropriate framework. Arriving at such a realisation provided a much needed sense of clarity and focus. Such an awakening was greeted with an initial sense of aha!, for I believed I had found a clearing amid the forest of doubt, uncertainty and confusion. I thought that I had arrived. But the clearing was short-lived for my initial view of phenomenology through my perceptual lens was, in hindsight, somewhat naive. Yes, I embraced the central tenets of phenomenological thought: of lived experience, human subjectivity, meaning, intentionality, freedom to choose in situations, and constructed reality (Pollio et al., 1997; Parse, 1998; Crotty, 1998). I had scanned the works of such notable phenomenologists as Bretano (1973), Husserl (1965), Heidegger (1962), MerleauPonty (1962), Ricoeur (1981) and Sartre (1958) and had acquired a superficial understanding of their similarities and differences. However, what escaped me at this time was the significance of difference in choosing a particular philosophical stance to underpin my perceptual and theoretical position. What now loomed before me was the need to revisit phenomenological thought with a heightened sensitivity to the different and, at times, disparate arguments mounted by the various authors in order to clarify what particular phenomenological stance I wished to use for the study.

Deciding on a phenomenological position


I revisited the works of Husserl, (1965), Heidegger (1962) and Merleau-Ponty (1962). In doing so, I became increasingly aware that the differences separating each phenomenologists understanding of phenomenological thought, and how the world of human experience could be explicated, were significant, profoundly impacting on the particular ontological and epistemological position I would eventu-

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ally invoke for the study. My readings led me through the maze of descriptive phenomenology (Giorgi, 1978; Colaizzi, 1980; van Kaam, 1969), existential phenomenology (Heidegger, 1968; Sartre, 1980), the human sciences (Dilthey, 1973, 1987) and hermeneutic phenomenology (Gadamer, 1975; Merleau-Ponty, 1962; Parse,1998; Tillich, 1952; van Manen, 1990, 1997). In my meanderings through the nexus of phenomenological discourse, I listened to the theoretical position presented by each author. I familiarised myself with argument and counterargument concerning different philosophical stances and struggled with virtually each and every word, phrase and sentence which appeared to have all the hallmarks of a foreign language. At times I found myself in what I considered an impasse as the language of phenomenology eluded comprehension. At times my only recourse to acquiring an understanding was to develop a lexicon of words that once mastered gave me entry to the world of phenomenology. As I became increasingly comfortable with the language, I was able to begin to explore indepth the various avenues to phenomenological inquiry which, until then, was essentially of a superficial nature. After considerable reading and reflection I came to believe that all knowing is interpretation: a persons reality is formed through the meanings they attribute to personal experience. Adopting this particular stance was a watershed in my phenomenological journey. I had toyed with the thought that pure description was the closest approximation to and the only reliable way of accessing another persons world. I held the belief that how people describe their experiences is how life is for them. I had given little thought to the possibility that the use of language and its associated meaning is uniquely individual and that a persons choice of word in attempting to describe the meaning of an experience is essentially an exercise in personal interpretation. In other words, the very act of description, whether that be of an object or a personal experience, is essentially hermeneutic in nature. It is through interpretation of the lived world that a person gives meaning to their lives. Reaching such a position of relative certitude from which one can convincingly argue is, I believe, of fundamental importance for any researcher in positioning him/herself in relation to the phenomenon to be explored and the philosophical gaze to be adopted. However, arriving at such a point was only part of the journey. Within phenomenological thought I sought to locate a theoretical perspective that focused on the notions of health and quality of life as an expression of a persons lived world from which to argue my

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position that people, when able to choose, choose health. Fortunately I stumbled onto the work of a nurse theorist, Rosmarie Rizzo Parse, who has developed a conceptual framework which posits the belief that an individual, irrespective of his/her situation in life, has the potential to move beyond the limitations imposed at any given moment to new possibilities and new ways of being in the world. Such sentiments were in total harmony with my world view; specifically, it offered me a theoretical structure upon which to argue my position. The theoretical underpinnings of Parses human becoming school of thought, as it has come to be known, are: rooted in the human sciences, which posits methodologies directed toward uncovering the meaning of phenomena as humanly experiencedThe human becoming school of thought is a human science system of interrelated concepts describing the unitary humans mutual process with the universe in cocreating becoming. Essential ideas are the humanuniverse mutual process, the coconstitution of health, the multidimensional meanings the unitary human gives to being and becoming, and the humans freedom in each situation to choose alternative ways of becoming (Parse, 1998, pp. 910). As Parse (1998) puts it, the theory of human becoming is constructed on assumptions about humans and becoming consistent with Rogerss principles and postulates of unitary human beings and existentialphenomenological thought, particularly that of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre (Parse, 1998). Parses (1998) philosophical disposition was a complementary fit for what I wanted to explore and I therefore adopted it as the theoretical framework for my study. At this stage I thought that the difficult part of my journey was now over and that I could move into a comfortable position for the remainder of the study. How wrong can one be? Having decided on my approach, I was now required to commit my thoughts to writing. Transposing the mindset of theoretical understanding to paper in a coherent, methodical and consistently-focused manner was not an easy task. It demanded that I retain a disciplined and attuned orientation to the phenomenon under investigation while reading widely to ensure that the most up-to-date and relevant material formed the basis of the theoretical position adopted for the study. At times this led me into uncharted waters where one word,

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idea or image functioned as a distracting trigger launching me on a voyage of discovery that, at times, only remotely resembled the type of literature I should have been pursuing. At times I found myself trying to make tenuous connections between rich material that invited me into new realms of understanding and the phenomenon under investigation, as a means of justifying my perceived indulgent behaviour. Therefore, it was a disconsolate individual who was forced to come to the realisation that such a venture was not compatible with the focus of the study and, if pursued, it would be at my own peril and that of the project. The primary constraining force was time. As a parttime student and in full-time employment, I was continually placed in the unenviable position of balancing competing demands of work and study. However, the personal struggle to achieve an acceptable balance was short-lived: unfortunately I succumbed to the unrelenting and surreptitious requirements of work at the expense of my studies. To my chagrin, work had triumphed over study and I had become, to all intents and purposes, the slave of work. Work had consumed all my waking hours with little if any time to devote to the research project. I became increasingly anxious about being caught in the dilemma of attempting to juggle time. The only solution appeared to be to re-evaluate my work commitments and devote more time to my thesis. I learned an important lesson during this period: that any person engaging in research must be able to realistically assess how much time will be required in order to complete the study as well as the level of commitment the researcher will need in order to ensure adequate time is devoted to the project. Once I committed more time to my studies I was able to move forward and commence the process of participant selection.

Selecting participants for the study


Selecting participants to be part of the study was an interesting experience. The identified criteria for participation in the study were clearly stated: participants were to be men who had experienced depression and were willing to discuss what such an experience was like for them. Given such clear requirements, I saw the coming task of locating suitable participants as straightforward: simply invite men who met the inclusion criteria for participation in the study as approved by the University Human Research Ethics Committee. What was not evident to me at the time, but came to be of central concern, was my felt need to ensure that the best and most appropriate potential participants would be invited to tell their stories of living

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with depression. Harbouring such a disposition of only wanting to include the best was motivated by my desire to obtain rich and indepth descriptions of experience that otherwise may not be achieved. To invite people to participate in the study that would contribute a less than perfect description of their experiences was untenable. What I had failed to realise was that working from my hidden agenda amounted to unwarranted and unacceptable bias. Yes, I was very conscious that in any decision in life there is always an element of bias. That is part of the human condition. However, in coming to the realisation that to exclude potential participants who met the inclusion criteria on the basis that they were not the best forced me to review my attitude to participant selection and how such attitudes can compromise the integrity of any study. Such an insight proved to be most valuable in determining who would be the storytellers in this study. From that point in the research process I adhered strictly to the established criteria and remained cognisant of my potential for personal bias. When a researcher utilises the strategy of purposive sampling (an accepted mode of participant selection within qualitative research) he/she is always open to the possibility of being accused of potential bias. It is therefore incumbent on the researcher to take every precaution to remain faithful to the intent of the study and the spirit of sound research. Once participants had been identified and invited to be part of the project, the next step was to provide an opportunity for them to tell their stories of living with depression.

Engaging the participants


The process of information gathering was simultaneously exciting and daunting. It was and continues to be for me a pivotal point of the phenomenological project: the privileged position of sharing another persons lived world. Uppermost in my mind at this time was the need to balance proscribed methodology, with its emphasis on procedural application and scientific rigour, with finding a path to understanding through sensitive attentiveness to the phenomenon of concern. I found solace in the counsel of Pollio et al. (1997) who advise that, if permitted, in any given piece of research, method and topic mutually select one another. Pollio et al. (1997) further suggest that: if method and phenomenon arise from common concerns how the world of everyday human experience is to be describedwe have a situation appropriate to the original meaning of the word method, a meaning that combines the

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word hodos, a path or way, with the word meta, across or beyondUnder this rendering, method is a way or path toward understanding that is as sensitive to its phenomenon as to its own orderly and self-correcting aspects (Pollio et al., 1997, p. 28). It would have been very easy for me, as researcher, to lead the participants through a predetermined rule-driven interview process and so maintain control over the type of data to emerge. However, adopting such an approach to information gathering is the antithesis of what is required in phenomenological research. What was not so easy was to adhere to what I espoused in word and believed in thought: participants as co-researchers are the experts of their lived world and it is they, not the researcher, who determine what they wish to share. Any questioning by the researcher emanates from the interview dialogue. Engaging in a process of shared dialogue, the researcher assumes a respectful position vis-a-vis the real expert, the participant. In this way, a path to understanding emerges out of the shared respect of two people committed to exploring the lived world of one of them (Pollio et al., 1997, p. 29). Accessing the lived world of another can be achieved through listening to a persons stories of their personal experiences. The creation of telling of stories has been used universally by cultures, communities and individuals to provide hope, meaning, purpose and understanding in life (Dwivedi, 1997, p. 42). Mair (1989, p. 2) suggests that, stories are the womb of personhood. Stories make and break us. Stories sustain us in time of trouble and encourage us toward ends we would not otherwise envision. In other words, our lives are inextricably intertwined with stories giving expression to our life narrative. It forms the basis of our meaning-making giving shape to our lives (Bruner cited in Dwivedi, 1986, pp. 278). Brooks (1984) provides an insightful comment: We live immersed in narrative, recounting and reassessing the meaning of our past actions, anticipating the outcome of our future projects, situating ourselves at the intersection of several stories not yet completed. Stories provide access to a land of personal experience in which reason does not venture (Brooks, 1984, p. 3). A persons stories also have both intellectual and educative value, giving insight into the essence of experience. Stories perpetuate the generation of knowledge through which people are able to develop understanding and coherence of their lived world. Such understandings make it possible for the individual to address both the conflicts of daily living and the developmental dilemmas of life (Dwivedi, 1997, p. 42).

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The process of sharing involved in the telling of, and listening to, another persons story provides an opportunity for intimacy and connectedness (Clarkson, 1992). It is within such a climate that the participant is able to openly share their personal experiences and accumulated wisdom. My own philosophical stance accorded with such notions and, therefore, each and every story shared by the participants was not only honoured as an important life experience but also valued for its contribution to understanding the life of depressed men. The development of such an attitude or disposition was for me a far cry from the everyday world of hustle and bustle, quick fixes and legitimising ones existence. I have now come to realise that engaging in phenomenological inquiry is not a matter of technique or simply following strict procedural guidelines, albeit important considerations, but rather one of embracing a philosophical stance that values the nature of human existence and the personal meaning of experience. The process of analysis, therefore, should primarily be concerned with the act of attempting to understand the point of view of the participant which: involves an insight-like process that comes from a complete immersion with both the original interview in the form of dialogue and in its subsequent written form as protocol. In achieving a thematic description, the researcher does not attempt to thematise on the basis of formal or abstract principles but, rather, to capture what the experience was like for the participantThematic interpretation is a continuous process of going back and forth among various parts of the text in which earlier and later parts are continuously being rethematised in the light of new relations provided by an unfolding descriptive understanding of the text (Pollio et al., 1997, p. 52). Insights gleaned through the processes of immersion, reflection and analysis of participants text dialogues now needed to be articulated in a form that captured the essence of their experiences. In the first instance, I believed that the written word would be the most appropriate vehicle for achieving such an outcome. However, as I began writing, I became increasingly conscious of the limitations of language when only expressed through written text. Other modes of conveying the findings of the study needed to be explored. It was at this juncture that I turned to alternative modalities of human expression by which we, as human beings, communicate to the world. The expressive modalities of art, music, photography and poetry became complementary avenues

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for expressing the richness and depth of the studys findings that otherwise would not be captured. The search for appropriate expressions that illuminated the participants fundamental message or essence of their experience was a liberating feeling. I no longer sensed that I was confined to one modality but rather had a personal choice in the way I could give voice to the shared world of the participants. As I explored the different modalities, I began to realise that adhering to contemporary accepted methods of presenting the findings of a study simply because that is what the scientific community demands or expects is not necessarily a recipe for achieving rigorous research. What is important is to choose the most appropriate vehicle/s through which the results of a study can best be illuminated and expressed. For the purpose of this study I have used poetry, music and artwork as complementary modalities of expression to the written text in order to convey the richness, depth and complexity of the participants lived world that, for me, was often beyond the realm of words. Each of the modalities provided different paths to explicating insights and understandings gleaned from the participants dialogue texts. They also provided a sharable language for that which I believed seemed to defy verbal utterance, while potentially inviting the reader/observer to engage in a process of dialogue with the various text forms. The inclusion of a range of text forms to accurately reflect the lived world of the participants resulted in a rich tapestry of complementary ways by which understanding, interpretation and expression of anothers experience could be achieved. At this point in my research career I feel comfortable about testing the boundaries of conventional scientific inquiry. I no longer feel the need to engage in academic debate concerning the primacy of particular research paradigms within the community of scholars. What is important to me is to keep alive the creative process to inquiry even though, at times, that means being lost in the labyrinthine paths of creative discovery. In many respects, research is about passing through the alchemical crucible leading to deeper understandings of self and the world. Qualitative research is not a one person band pushing back the frontiers of ignorance and the unknown but, rather, a process of co-creation: researcher with participant in the generation of new knowledge as explicated through human experience.

Allowing the voice of the text to be heard


The process of analysing the participants text dialogues was initially tortuous, as I, the meaning maker and collector of wisdom, began to

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elicit what I considered to be the essence of their experiences. Unconsciously, I had assumed the position of knower of other peoples lives. The surgeon was in control as the dissection of texts proceeded with unfettered haste. I was on a mission to reveal the concealed, to make the tacit explicit and to bring clarity to that which was obscure. What was unfolding was a recipe for disaster: I had begun to treat the text as a lifeless object for interpretation through which I would instil life. In my haste, I had forgotten the fundamental rubric: to respect the text as a representation of a persons lived world and be open to the wonder of experience. The words of John ODonohue (1998, p. 200) which I had read sometime earlier and had forgotten came to mind: Wonder creates a lyrical space where thoughts and feelings take leave of the repetitive patterns, to regain their original impulse of reverence before the mystery of what is. These provided a much needed impetus to change my attitude of being the knower of anothers life world. The text dialogues of the participants to which I had privileged access were part of the unfolding mystery of their life story. The process of analysis therefore, I believe, is an invitation to the researcher to engage in open dialogue with the text and, through attentive attunement, allow the text to reveal its hidden meaning. To assume such a position brings into debate the role of the researcher in phenomenological research.

Defining the role of researcher


Negotiating your way through the myrrh of disparate arguments and philosophical positions about the place of the researcher in phenomenological inquiry can be daunting. With time and an opportunity to muse over the presenting arguments, a sense of clarity gradually emerged. From my perspective, the researcher is not a neutral, objective observer engaged in the collection of data for the purposes of either proving or disproving a particular point of view or defending a particular position; but rather, an involved collaborator interested only in exploring the lived world of the participant in all its richness and depth. The participant is ascribed the role of co-researcher rather than designated the position of object of investigation. Both researcher and participant co-create an environment in which the lived world of the participant is able to emerge freely rather than to be constrained by predetermined injunctions (Pollio et al., 1997, p. 33). What has become evident during the course of the study is that the role of researcher and participant must be in accord with the intent of the study if credibility for the project is to be achieved.

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What I have learnt to date


If the end result of any study is to be the generation of new knowledge and personal wisdom, the question that must be asked is: What have I learnt from this experience? The question is both an invitation to reflect on the journey of discovery and an essential requirement for credible research. In answering it, I would like to share my personal insights gleaned from undertaking phenomenological research: Engaging in phenomenological research is fundamentally a process of scholarly inquiry concerning the nature of ordinary, everyday experiences of humans living in the world. From a phenomenological perspective experience is not viewed: as a consequence of some internal set of events such as mind or brain but as a relationship between people and their world, whether the world at that moment consists of other people, nature, time, ones own body, personal or philosophical ideas, or whatever. What is soughtis a rigorous description of human life as it is reflected upon in all of its first-person concreteness, urgency, and ambiguity (Pollio et al., 1997, pp. 45). To journey down this particular path to understanding requires the researcher to be comfortable working in the realms of uncertainty, ambiguity and mystery which are aspects of the first-person world. To embark on the journey of phenomenological inquiry requires appropriate preparation, part of which is to acquire a sound knowledge of the various philosophical positions put forward by scholars of phenomenology, as well as being cognisant of the implications inherent in choosing a particular phenomenological stance. Having such a knowledge base is, I believe, an essential prerequisite for scientific research. Phenomenology is not about searching for the real in the world. Such a view suggests that the real/ reality is something to be found external to the person. Pollio et al. (1997), in synthesising the works of Berger and Luckmann (1966), Sartre (1960/63) and Strauss (1967), suggest a contrary view: the phenomenological real is to be found nowhere but in the ongoing, ever-changing context of the social and natural world; the real is that which is lived as it is lived (Pollio et al.,

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1997, p. 31). In response to those who attempt to mount an opposing argument to that posited by Pollio et al. (1997), the question that needs to be asked is: Where other than in human experience is real to be found? Phenomenological research is not about a search for the truth as an atemporal, objective certainty (Bernstein, 1986) existing outside the person, but rather the rendering of interpretation of a particular human experience lived out within the paradoxical certainty/uncertainty of everyday life. Within phenomenological thought, there is no objective truth waiting to be discovered. Truth, or meaning, comes into existence in and out of our engagement with the realities in our worldMeaning [or truth] is not discovered but constructed (Crotty, 1998, pp. 89). Each person constructs their own meanings and truths which are open to change moment by moment. The phenomenological interview is essentially a dialogue between researcher and participant, the focus of which is to gain a first-person account of a particular human experience: for example, hope, despair, sickness, loss, taking life day-byday, etc. The interview is conducted with the intent that the participant primarily sets the course of the interview dialogue. The process of questioning is recursive in nature aimed at evoking description and clarification of the participants lived experience. The role of researcher prior to interview is one of preparation and attention to the phenomenon to be explored. The role of researcher during the interview process is to engage the participant in open dialogue (Parse, 1998). Through quiet attentive and silent immersion in the unfolding stories of the participant, the researcher enters the world of the participant as a not-knowing stranger: the persons world is a personal reality, the history of lived moments known only to the person (Parse, 1998, p. 72). The process of information analysis is essentially concerned with capturing what the experience of the phenomenon under study was like for the participants. Pollio et al. (1997, p. 46) suggest that, understanding the world as it is for another requires both a certain perspective and a certain level of critical distance in which the researcher steps back to reflect on the phenomenon [under investigation]. The need for reflective distance is an important component of the analysis process in allowing the researcher to immerse him/herself in the data

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while simultaneously being able to distinguish between ones own emergent material from that of the participants texts.

Final comment
The conclusion of any study is concerned with reaching a point of completion and closure. It is, for many researchers, a defining moment in which the final report is made available to the academic community for sharing, critique and comment. From a phenomenological perspective, the completion of any project is not to suggest that the final word regarding the phenomenon under study has been uttered. The final report is in actuality a living text that invites the reader to engage in a timeless dialogue from which new insights and understandings are gleaned. The completion of a project is viewed by phenomenology as both a point of arrival and a point of departure.

References
Berger, P. L. & Luckmann, T. (1966), The Social Construction of Reality, Doubleday, Garden City, NY. Bernstein, R. J. (1986), From Hermeneutics to Praxis. In B. Wachterhauser (ed.), Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy, State University Press of New York, Albany. Bretano, F. (1973), Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (Trans. A. Rancurello & D. Terrel, ed. L. McAlister), Routledge & Kegan, London. Brooks, M. (1984), Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. Burton, R. (1651), The Anatomy of Melancholy (ed. T. C. Faulkner et al., 198994), Clarendon Press, Oxford. Clarkson, P. (1992), Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy: An Integrated Approach, Tavistock/Routledge, London. Collaizzi, P. (1992), Psychological Research as the Phenomenologist Views it. In R. Valle, R. & M. King (eds) (1978), Existential Phenomenological Alternatives for Psychology, Oxford University Press, New York. Crotty, M. (1996), Phenomenology and Nursing Research, Churchill Livingstone, South Melbourne. Crotty, M. (1998), The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspectives in the Research Process, Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards. Deleuze, G. (1988), Foucault (Trans. S. Hand), Athlone Press, London.

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Derrida, J. (1983), The Time of a Thesis: Punctuations. In A. Montefiore (ed.) Philosophy in France Today, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Dilthey, W. (1973), Dilthey: Selected Readings (ed. H. P. Richman), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Dilthey, W. (1989), Introduction to the Human Sciences (eds. R. Mackerel & F. Rood), Princetown University Press, New Jersey. Dwivedi, K. (1997), The Therapeutic Use of Stories, Routledge, London. Eliot, T. S. (1953), Four Quartets, Faber & Faber, London. Foucault, M. (1980), Power and Knowledge, Pantheon, New York. Gadamer, H. (1975), Truth and Method, Sheed and Ward, London. Giorgi, A. (1996), Phenomenology and Psychological Research, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh. Glaser, B. & Strauss, A. (1979), The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, Aldine, New York. Hammond, M., Howarth, J. & Keats, R. (1991), Understanding Phenomenology, Blackwell, United Kingdom. Heidegger, M. (1962), Being and Time (Trans. J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson), Harper & Row, New York. Husserl, E. (1981), The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois. Kierkegaard, S. (1944/1980), Concepts of Anxiety (Trans. W. Lowrie), Princeton University Press, Princeton. Mair, M. (1989), Kelly Bannister and a Story-telling Psychology, International Journal of Personal Construct Theory, vol. 2, pp. 114. McNiff, S. (1998), Art-Based Research, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, United Kingdom. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962), The Primacy of Perception, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois. Motion, A. (1997), Keats, Faber & Faber, London. ODonohue, J. (1998), Eternal Echoes: Exploring Our Hunger to Belong, Bantam Press, London. Parse, R. R. (1998), The Human Becoming School of Thought: A Perspective for Nurses and other Health Professionals, Sage, California. Pollio, H., Henley, T. & Thompson, C. (1997), The Phenomenon of Everyday Life, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom. Ricoeur, P. (1981), Phenomenology and Hermeneutics. In J. Thompson (Trans. & ed.), Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Ricoeur, P. (1991), From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics II (Trans. K. Blamey & J. Thompson), Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois.

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Sartre, J. P. (1958), Being and Nothingness (Trans. H. Barnes), Methuen, London. Spiegelberg, H. (1981), Context of the Phenomenological Movement, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague. Spinelli, E. (1989), The Interpreted World: An Introduction to Phenomenological Psychology, Sage, London. Strauss, A. (1987), Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists, Cambridge University Press, New York. Styron, W. (1990), Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, Vintage Books, New York. Tillich, P. (1952), The Courage to Be, Yale University Press, New Haven. van Kaam, A. (1969), Existential Foundations of Psychology, WilkesBarre, PA. van Manen, M. (1990), Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy, State University of New York Press, Albany. van Manen, M. (1997), From Meaning to Method, Qualitative Health Research, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 34569.

CHAPTER 5

Exploring Creative Forms within Phenomenological Research


Laura Brearley
With all the power you possess, you stretch forward to embrace the life you have been given, you try to get a grasp on some elements of life and then you reinterpret what you have grasped to create fragments of meaning (Bjorkvold, 1992).

The story of the research


The process of undertaking my PhD has been both an inner and outer journey. This is the story of how my doctoral research came to be what it is. It is also my story. It is the story of my journey to find my creative voice within academia. The story began with an exploration of how managers made meaning of significant experiences of transition in organisational life. The research participants were ten middle and senior managers undergoing an amalgamation in which all of their jobs were spilled. The original research data was in the form of images which managers drew in response to trigger questions. They would then tell me about their drawings, the emotions behind them and the symbols they contained. The images and accompanying stories were an evocative shortcut into their experiences of transition. I wanted to do justice to the richness of the data being generated by the managers, but I struggled to find an appropriate voice in my writing to reflect the texture of their experiences. The use of images and stories as the primary source of data had produced powerful data, but I needed to find a form and a style that reflected the emotional intensity of the content. I also wanted the work to be rigorous. The challenge was to explore the boundaries between scholarship and self-indulgence. I did not want to write in a narcissistic way. Nor did I want to reduce
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the rich data to thematic descriptions that lacked soul or emotional substance. At the heart of my work was the intention to be true to the managers data, to invite active engagement with the material and to enrich our understanding of the experience of transition. As I attempted to do justice to the richness of the data being generated by the managers, I found that others, when hearing about it or seeing the images, strongly identified with the emotional content. There was something about the experience of transition which was shared, even though the content and context of the experiences were different.

Use of existential phenomenology


In my research, I explored ways of representing the managers stories with a vocabulary that acknowledged the texture and complexity of their experience. My research was based on two interrelated questions: In what ways do managers make meaning of the experience of transition in organisational change? In what ways can creative forms of representation evoke the nature of the managers experiences of transition? I had two objectives in undertaking this research. My first objective was to increase awareness and understanding about the human experience of transition in organisational change, and, in a more general sense, to encourage greater humanity in organisations. Secondly, I wanted to contribute to the academic debate about expanding the range of creative options for researchers by undertaking research which: reflected the original richness and complexity of the data; invited new levels of engagement that are both cognitive and emotional; and, provided multiple prisms through which to explore experience. The methodology I chose to use was existential phenomenology. The research was phenomenological because it combined the concepts of empathically engaging with another human beings experience (Bentz & Shapiro, 1998), exploring the essential and perennial themes of the human condition (von Eckartsberg, 1998), merging cognitive and noncognitive ways of knowing (van Manen, 1997), and the interpretation

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of phenomenology which seeks to tap the unique nature of human experience and invite us into the experience of another (van Manen, 1997). When I began my PhD, I did not initially envisage that the methodology I would adopt would be existential phenomenology. In the early stages of my work, my thinking was definitely qualitative. The initial draft proposals of my research project identified action research as my methodology. Subsequent drafts described a participatory ethnographic model (Reason, 1990; Fetterman, 1988). At one point, I explored the possibility of undertaking the research as an organisational case study (Smith, 1982). I was impressed with the authenticity of Smiths (1982) voice in his case studies in which he applied the methodologies of Organisational Diagnosis (Levinson, 1972) and Participant Observation (Filstead, 1970). I was drawn to Smiths (1982) contention that it was not possible to understand an event in terms of a singular reality and that the complexity and diversity of a phenomenon must be taken into account. Smith (1982) demonstrated a high degree of awareness about his own filters of perception which underpinned the research. He described his own perspective as a middleness mentality, torn by polar tensions. He was acutely aware of the pain that his non-interventionist approach caused. I appreciated his honest presence in the work. In my exploration for an appropriate methodology, I was also excited by Freires notions about the role of knowledge as a significant instrument of power and control (Freire, 1970). I supported the political activism of recognising peoples role in setting the agendas, participating in data gathering and analysis and controlling the use of the outcomes (Tandon, 1989; Fals-Borda & Rahman, 1991). I also warmed to Peter Reasons participative action-oriented approaches to enquiry work, which grounded knowing and action in the body of experience (Reason, 1994) and invited us to come to our senses (Berman, 1989). I particularly liked Reasons (1994) concept that participatory action research could embrace a whole range of expressive forms including song, dance and theatre as well as more orthodox forms of data. My changing relationship with the organisation which was my research site and in which I had worked for four years made action research difficult to undertake, however. Nevertheless, there were elements of these approaches which endured in my thinking. In wanting to maximise authenticity of experience and feeling in my research, I found I was most drawn to phenomenology. In the

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phenomenological tradition, there is a view that language is not adequate to describe experience and that words ultimately miss the fullness and uniqueness of our private worlds (van Manen, 1997, p. 360). This felt like coming home. I concurred with van Manens idea that words fall short because language is essentially social and that meaning adheres to the socio-cultural context to which a given language belongs. I was attracted to using existential phenomenology as my methodology because phenomenology employs modes of discourse that attempt to merge cognitive and non-cognitive ways of knowing. Alice Walker (1984) writes that what is always needed in the appreciation of art or life is the larger perspective. She contends that a perspective which enlarges the private and the public worlds is gained through the making of connections where none existed before. Her description of this process of making connections captured, for me, the spirit of phenomenology. As I undertook my search to understand more about phenomenology, I became aware of the history of its evolution as a research methodology and the different ways in which people understood and applied it. Husserl, the originator of philosophical phenomenology, defines phenomenology as the study of the ways in which things appear to consciousness (Husserl, 1962). In his later work, he introduced a notion of life-world which acknowledged the cultural assumptions built into peoples ways of experiencing reality (Husserl, 1970). That made sense to me and linked in with my understanding of Gareth Morgans construct of research as engagement, which acknowledges the importance of understanding the network of assumptions and practices that link the researcher to the phenomena being investigated (Morgan, 1983). Bentz and Shapiros (1998) concept of empathetic and active engagement also appealed to me strongly. They describe phenomenology as an approach to use when we wish to understand or gain access to the meaning of human phenomena for an individual. According to their definition, phenomenology is concerned with human behaviour and meaning. A phenomenologist searches for essential or fundamental structures underlying experience by listening, watching and engaging in empathic understanding of another human beings experiences (Bentz & Shapiro, 1998). As I continued my exploration, I discovered that the phenomenological approach had grown out of a tradition significantly influenced by psychological research undertaken in the 1950s. Adrian van Kaam was a psychologist who described his work as existential. In his

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own doctorate, he explored the phenomenon of feeling understood from a Rogerian client-centred perspective. Another experimental psychologist from the same era, Amadeo Giorgi, was heavily influenced by van Kaams work and also added some dimensions of his own. He described his philosophy as phenomenological. Tesch (1990) describes van Kaams and Giorgis philosophies as closely related, with existentialism often implicit within phenomenology. As my research progressed, I became increasingly conscious of the existential themes emerging from the images and stories of the managers. It was all there, the bedrock questions of meaning, identity, loneliness, belonging and responsibility. I was drawn to Rolf von Eckartsbergs definition of existential phenomenology which describes it as a combination of the study of human consciousness with an interest in the essential and perennial themes of the human condition (von Eckartsberg, 1998). In outlining these existential themes in broad terms, von Eckartsberg describes human existence as finite, embodied, mooded, in time, situated, threatened by death, capable of language, symbolism and reflection, striving for meanings, values and choices, self-fulfilling and self-transcending, as involving and committing to relationships, accountable and capable of responsibility (von Eckartsberg, 1998, p. 8). This application of phenomenological methodology to the perennial issues of human existence was what I had been looking for. It was congruent with my parallel journey of exploring forms of creative data which encompassed cognitive and non-cognitive ways of knowing. If I was to explore van Manens (1997) idea that words fall short, how might I move beyond the traditional form of densely referenced academic text to more fully convey the phenomenon of transition? This question led me into a deeper exploration of the debate about issues of representation.

Issues of Representation
The use of alternative forms of representation in my research was predicated on three ideas. Firstly, there are many different ways in which the world can be experienced and represented (Barone & Eisner, 1997). Secondly, some human experiences are so complex and intensely emotional that creative forms of representation can reflect their texture more evocatively than traditional academic text. Creative forms invite us to develop insights that would otherwise be inaccessible and they invite us to see more clearly and feel more deeply (Bjorkvold, 1992; Ellis, 1997; Richardson, 1997; Banks & Banks,

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1998). Thirdly, each person who chooses to engage and make meaning of the data breathes new life into the texts (Jipson & Paley, 1997). Challenging the voice of the omniscient academic observer disturbs the very basis of epistemological assumptions, as Jipson and Paley (1997, p. 2) articulate: What counts as research? What matters as data? What procedures are considered legitimate for the production of knowledge? What forms shape the making of explanations? What constitutes proof? In the context of reconstructing the co-ordinates of analytic practice in a post-positive paradigm, Foucault has written about fracture areas, in which interesting things can erupt (Foucault, cited in Jipson & Paley, 1997, p. 5). My research used alternative forms of representation to create spaces in and around the data, from which new things can continue to erupt in this way. My intention was to represent and analyse the research data through Lathers concept of vivifying rather than proving (Lather, 1991, p. 91). I wanted the data to have their own life and the capacity to be experienced and analysed in many different ways.

Making meaning within phenomenological research


The meaning people make out of the experience of transition was at the heart of my research. Underpinning the use of alternative forms of representation is the notion that meaning is not encountered, but constructed (Barone & Eisner, 1997). The act of constructive interpretation is a creative event of meaning-making. The concept of meaning is linked to the process of understanding and is shaped by the beliefs, values and attitudes of the meaning maker. The definition of meaning is multi-layered. The organisational existentialists (Morin, 1995; Pauchant, 1995) and the psychological existentialist Yalom (1980) include the three components of significance, orientation and coherence of an experience in their definition of meaning. Meaning can be defined as the sense and purpose of experience or how a subject conceives an objects significance and purpose (Brief & Nord, 1990). Congruence of subject, feelings, thoughts and actions (Yalom, 1980) is seen within some psychological frameworks to be achieved through acts of commitment (Frankl, 1963). The making of meaning is the active construction of significance and involves the interrelationship between subject and object, if indeed, they are even perceived as a duality (Wilber, 1996). Within my research, I drew on both philosophical and psychological traditions

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and defined the making of meaning as the creative process of generating significance and understanding through the dynamic interplay of internal and external experience. The managers made meaning of their experiences of transition in different ways. The intensity and range of emotional responses were significantly mediated by how much the managers stood to lose or gain from the change events. For many of the managers, the intensity of the experience generated a deep questioning about issues of identity, belonging, responsibility and meaning. Many managers questioned the meaning of work and its place in their lives. These existential questions, at times, dissolved the boundaries between personal and professional worlds: Who am I?, How might I live?, What really matters?

Managers experiences
The first round of data was collected at a time of great intensity within the organisation, two weeks before the official amalgamation of the organisation. A few days before the data collection, a controversial interim restructure had occurred in the organisation. This interim restructure had resulted in eighteen senior managers across the three amalgamating organisations competing for six positions. Some consequent spillage of positions at the middle management level had also taken place. This restructure had been preceded by a six-month period in which a Merger Implementation Committee had effectively had strategic control of the organisation, rendering the three existing Directors relatively powerless. The new CEO for the amalgamated organisation had still not been appointed. The second round of data collection occurred a year later. The new management had been in place for nine months. The period of intense upheaval was over but the atmosphere in the aftermath of the reorganisation was still highly charged. Significant numbers of staff had been relocated or had left the organisation. Of the group of ten managers participating in this research, one had taken a package and another had moved interstate but was still connected to the organisation through project work. The other eight had remained in the organisation, but all of them had new roles. The third round of data collection occurred a year after the second round of data collection. The organisation was still deeply unsettled. Smaller restructures were still occurring and there were rumours of another possible amalgamation in the future. The intensity of the first and second rounds of data collection was not so evident, but

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managers described a deep weariness and a reduced sense of engagement with the organisation. The managers in the study experienced a complex mixture of emotions during the amalgamation. The prospect of job losses engendered high anxiety and a sense of dread in the managers. They found themselves competing with colleagues in a shrinking pool of available positions, facing the prospect of public humiliation. Safe places to share their feelings of vulnerability shrank, as people who used to be collaborative co-workers became competitors. Increases in workload, ambiguous job roles and the frustrations of ill-defined or non-existent new systems led to exhaustion and despair, at times. The managers sometimes experienced contradictory feelings concurrently. Feelings of loss were felt at the same time as a sense of opportunity, along with feelings of despair and hope, dread and excitement. The dynamic interplay between these dialectics was complex and difficult to hold. In describing the individual and organisational damage caused by the amalgamation, the managers experienced reduced levels of trust in the new organisation. Their willingness to contribute to the organisation was significantly reduced. The managers felt a deep sense of loss for the people and the organisational culture in which they had invested time and emotional energy. The language around their sense of loss was described by some in metaphors of grief and mourning. Other managers responded with high levels of cynicism and black humour.

The experience of exploring intersubjectivities


One consequence of this protracted proximity to pain was that, as a researcher, I had to deal with my own issues about organisations. I had my own questions to examine about priorities in life and about issues of care and responsibility in the workplace. The exploration of intersubjectivities is one of the strengths and also one of the dangers of undertaking existential phenomenology. It is also a strength and a risk within the domain of creative expression. Much of the creative impulse within this research has emerged from pain. At some points, the managers pain and my own pain seemed inseparable. In the middle of the research, the boundaries became very blurred for me. I had to be vigilant about avoiding the trap of self-indulgence and ensuring that the managers voices remained the central focus of the work. The impulse to start the research journey began with my own need to understand more about the experience of transition. The

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creative process of exploring it in an academic context has been one of the ways in which I have been able to make my own meaning of experiences which have left me feeling bruised and bewildered. The story of my research has been a journey to self, to the lifeworlds of the research participants and to the people who will engage with the research. The story is also the search to find a congruence between content, form and methodology. Creative resources such as images, poems and songs can provide avenues for exploration which transcend cerebral ways of knowing and reflect the depth and complexity of the transitional experience. Engaging with creative forms within phenomenological research invites people to make connections with the research, with each other and with themselves.

References
Banks, A. (1998), Some People Would Say I Tell Lies. In A. Banks & S. Banks (eds), Fiction and Social Research, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California, pp. 16778. Banks, A. & Banks, S. ( eds) (1998), Fiction and Social Research: By Ice or Fire, Sage, California. Barone, T. & Eisner, E. (1997), Arts-Based Educational Research in Complementary Methods for Research in Education. In R. Jaeger (ed.), Complementary Methods for Research in Education (2nd ed.), American Education Research Association, Washington, pp. 7394. Bentz, V. & Shapiro, J. (1998), Mindful Enquiry in Social Research, Sage, California. Berman, R. A. (1989), Modern Culture and Critical Theory: Art, Politics and the Legacy of the Frankfurt School, University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin. Bjorkvold, J. (1992), Creativity and Communication, Song and Play from Childhood through Maturity, HarperCollins, New York. Brief, A., & Nord, W. R. (eds) (1990), Meanings of Occupational Work, Lexington Books, Toronto. Colaizzi, P. (1978), Psychological Research as the Phenomenologist Views It. In R. Valle & M. King (eds), ExistentialPhenomenological Alternatives for Psychology, Oxford University Press, New York. Coyle, S. (1998), Dancing With The Chameleon. In A. Banks & S. Banks (eds) Fiction and Social Research: By Ice or Fire, Sage, California, pp. 14766. Ellis, C. (1997), Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Emotionally about our Lives. In W. Tierney & T. Lincoln (eds), Representation

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and the Text: Reframing the Narrative Voice, State University of New York Press, Albany, pp. 11542. Ellis, C. & Flaherty, M. (eds) (1992), Investigating Subjectivity: Research on Lived Experience, Sage Publications, California. Fals-Borda, O. & Rahman, M. A. (1991), Action Knowledge: Breaking the Monopoly with Participatory Action Research, Apex, New York. Fetterman, D. (1988), Ethnography, Sage, California. Filstead, W. J. (1970), Qualitative Methodology: Firsthand Involvement with the Social World, Markham Publishing Company, Chicago. Frankl, V. E. (1963), Mans Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, Beacon Press, Boston. Freire, P. (1970), Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Seabury Press, New York. Haarsager, S (1998), Stories That Tell It Like It Is? Fiction Techniques and Prize-winning Journalism. In A. Banks & S. Banks (eds), Fiction and Social Research: By Ice or Fire, Sage, California, pp. 5166. Husserl, E. (1962), Ideas, Collier, New York. Husserl, E. (1970), The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois. Jipson, J. & Paley, N. (eds) (1997), Daredevil Research: Re-creating Analytic Practice, Peter Lang Publishing, New York. Kiesinger, C. E. (1998), Portrait of an Anorexic Life. In A. Banks & S. Banks (eds), Fiction and Social Research: By Ice or Fire, Sage, California, pp. 11536. Lather, P. (1991), Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy with/in the Postmodern, Routledge, New York. Levinson, H. (1972), Organizational Diagnosis, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Morgan, G.(1983), Beyond Method: Strategies for Social Research, Sage, California. Morin, E. (1995), Organisational Effectiveness and the Meaning of Work. In T. Pauchant (ed.), In Search of Meaning, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, pp. 2964. Pauchant, T. (ed.) (1995), In Search of Meaning, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. Reason, P. (ed.) (1990), Human Inquiry in Action: Developments in New Paradigm Research, Sage, California. Reason, P. (1994), Three Approaches to Participative Enquiry. In N. Denzin, & Y. Lincoln (eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, pp. 3249. Richardson, L. (1997), Fields of Play: Constructing an Academic Life, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey.

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Smith, K. (1982), Groups in Conflict: Prisons in Disguise, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, Iowa. Tandon, R. (1989), Participatory Research and Social Transformation, Convergence, vol. 21, issue 2/3, pp. 515. Tesch, R. (1990), Qualitative Research: Analysis Types and Software Tools, Falmer Press, Hampshire. Valle, R. & King, M. (eds) (1978), ExistentialPhenomenological Alternatives for Psychology, Oxford University Press, New York. van Manen, M. (1990), Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy, State University of New York Press, Albany. van Manen, M. (1997), From Meaning to Method, Qualitative Health Research, vol. 7, no. 3, August, pp. 34570. von Eckartsberg, R. (1998), Introducing Existential-Phenomenological Psychology. In Ron Valle (ed.), Phenomenological Inquiry in Psychology: Existential and Transpersonal Dimensions, Plenum Press, New York, pp. 320. Walker, A. (1984), In Search of Our Mothers Garden: Womanist Prose, Womens Press, London. Wilber, K. (1996), A Brief History of Everything, Hill of Content Publishing, Melbourne. Yalom, I. D. (1980), Existential Psychotherapy, Basic Books, New York.

CHAPTER 6

Phenomenological Constructions of Psychosocial Identities: Being a psychotherapy or reproductive technology user; the worlds of being homeless or a gambler
Erica Hallebone
In social science, phenomenology has been adapted through research methodology, initially developed in America by Alfred Schutz (see, for example, 1976), to explore everyday social life through which social actors interpret and construct society. As well as nearly two hundred years of social-theoretical developments in Europe, Schutz was powerfully affected by Max Webers work on social scientific methodology and human meanings and motives (Ritzer, 1996, p. 110), and by his view of history and social reality as composed of unique events with no generalisations at the empirical level. In this, it differs from the world of nature or physical reality, as well as from a positivist perspective on social science in which nomothetic or general laws were/are sought. Weberian sociology separates the empirical world from the constructed conceptual world so that, while the concepts used to describe the empirical world can never completely capture that world, they are used as heuristic tools to gain a better understanding of reality (Ritzer, 1996, p. 111). Connecting with the symbolic interactionist school of thinking in social theory (which dominated American sociology early in the twentieth century) is the idea that social reality is constructed by human beings and that, as such, this construction will be apparent in their individual meanings expressed within a social context. Alfred Schutz and Peter Berger (1963, 1967) played vital parts in the development of phenomenology in the USA. With a convergence in aspects of European and American thinking, phenomenology is
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considered part of the social action or interpretivist perspectives in sociology which are used as frameworks to examine individual actions and small social groups. Norman Blaikie (1993) provides a rigorous exposition of interpretivist (phenomenological) perspectives in research methodology and, more recently (Blaikie, 2000), discussion on research strategy linking with interpretivism/phenomenology. As the design for this monograph is to show the use of phenomenology in framing research, lengthy discussion about history or methodology is excluded. However, as I proceed to introduce some of my studies, there are inevitably some theoretical considerations. Some recent publications from my research have been about the construction of psychosocial or personal identity of individuals and how individuals, for example, interpret their own meanings in some specific contexts. These are those of clients/users of the psychotherapeutic or reproductive technological industries, being a homeless person or being a gambler. A basic intention of the studies is to contribute to social theory as a framework for thinking and presenting knowledge about people in society/social life. This is consistent with Schutzian phenomenology: it is based on a philosophy of how people understand their worlds, including the process of constructing intersubjective, cultural or social realities. Accordingly, I believe it is important to make textual analyses of the research participants meanings and, additionally, that these should be generated reflexively by the researcher in discussion about the typifications or categories of apparent meanings with the research participants. Apart from the social action/interpretivist perspectives, the other main group of perspectives in social theory are structural theories used to attempt to examine society in a more holistic way. In my overall perspective on social research, elements of a structural contextual basis are juxtaposed with the phenomenological accounts of individuals in the interpretation made by the researcher. Largely coming from review of other research literature, the structural aspects allow a bigger analytic picture to be drawn. For example, I believe there is limited value in reporting interpretations of individual gamblers of their experiences without some structural analysis of the gambling industry (although space and relevance restrict exploration of this in the example below). So, my general approach is closer to critical theory but the micro level in which my empirical research is generated uses an interpretivist (phenomenological) perspective.

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Study 1

Women and psychotherapy

A microsociological study, aspects of which are reported in Hallebone (1988, 1992a), traced the experience of 120 women (during five years of psychotherapy they undertook to resolve existential problems) and used different typologies in the organisation of qualitative data. The major typology of psychosocial identity was important not only in ordering data, but also in appreciating the changes occurring to individuals during the psychotherapeutic process. It was derived from an interpretivist or phenomenological perspective on individuals accounts of aspects of their psychosocial meanings and identities. The other two typologies were essentially of sensitising concepts but they also represented structural social elements and broadened the microfocus to include therapeutic communities and features of four different therapies. In this monograph, I am (briefly) reflecting on two aspects of this particular study: the methodological issues touching on combining interpretivist/micro/phenomenological data with structural data; and analysing and reporting the phenomenological accounts per se. First, it can be shown that concepts used in interpretivist sociological research to order (that is, analyse and present) qualitative data can also have measurement uses. They can be used to appreciate change occurring to social actors over time. In this microsociological research on personal identity and change through psychotherapy (or perceived to be so by the participants), three typologies were constructed. One encompassed clients (longitudinal) perceptions of personal identity; a second, aspects of the psychotherapeutic clients world views and the third, four kinds of psychotherapy. These then served two purposes: the organisation (or reduction) of qualitative sociological data, and the measurement, via participants subjective experiences over five years, of the effectiveness of the therapies. It should be pointed out here that the word measurement is problematised with reference to qualitative data because, of course, it refers to nominal and not ordinal or interval data. Change, in this instance, is measurable by descriptive words only, not numerically. The central theme here was the construction and use of multiple typologies (and methods) in researching the one problem: peoples success as psychotherapeutic subjects in making their desired changes in personal identities and, through that, the comparative success rates of the therapies. As noted above, the typology of concepts representing individuals psychosocial identities was the central one. For it, personal accounts, from unstructured interviews of

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participants experience engaging with forms of psychotherapy, were used to construct the psychosocial typology; this allowed for the recording of possible identity change during therapy and the longitudinal research. The second typology (of the four sub-samples or groups of thirty individuals in each of four therapies) was composed of concepts relevant to the theme of psychosocial change and its possibility and was drawn from questionnaire data. The third typology was based on the psychotherapists accounts and it orientated the four therapies to each other in their relative tendencies to encourage participants alternatively to accept, adjust or change their present psychosocial realities. My article in Quality and Quantity (Hallebone, 1992a) points out that both the issues of practical organisation (or reduction) of qualitative data for analysis and the possibility of combining micro and macro levels of analysis have been contentious for at least two decades (see, for example, Giddens, 1974, 1976, 1979, 1984). This debate encapsulates theoretical attempts to synthesise competing perspectives in order to resolve the sociological dualism of subject and object into a unified theory of human agency (Smart, 1985, p. 71) involving methodological positivist/naturalist disputes. Several contemporary justifications exist (for example, Layder, 1998). This can be recognised as a debate about combining human agency and social structure in research. Of course, it is also relevant to point out (but not pursue here!) that postmodernism in social research proceeds in an opposite direction with an implicit tendency to reject social theory altogether. Other justifications for mediating agency and structure have come from the need for social scientific research to have social practicability (for example, Bulmer, 1982) and a connection has been made between the need for informed social policy and interpretivist enquiry (for example, Jennings, 1983). Remaining with methodological issues but returning to interpretivist/phenomenological epistemology (ways of knowing), it can be seen historically that two methodological traditions (the Schutzian synthesis of sociological methodology with phenomenology and Glaser and Strausss grounded theory (1967)) come to the same problem via different routes. How can the researcher prevent the imposition of foreign meaning on the subject matter? As all the phenomenological researchers contributing to this volume agree, every possible effort must be made to obtain and verify the research participants the subjectsprecise meanings. My angle on this is that, because human agency and meaning construction occur within a socio-cultural context (and should not be withdrawn from that), the researcher

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should exploit such an inevitability of imposing meaning: not on respondents self accounts but on the framework in which they are sociologically interpreted. (And for the practical applicability of social research in policy-formulation, this process is a very important one.) Within interpretivist/phenomenological sociology, all data are qualitative and the central methodological debate is of verstehen (after Weber) (for example, Keat & Urry, 1975, p. 145): the description of intrinsically meaningful actions within the cultures of the social actors being studied. As Halfpenny notes (1979, p. 808), it is by grasping culturally appropriate concepts (through which respondents conduct their social life) that interpretivist sociological explanation is achieved. This contrasts with the sharp distinction drawn between concepts and explanatory hypotheses within a positivist approach. In creating his phenomenological sociology, Schutz considered the question of the meaning of the social world for the observer by posing the question of what the social world means for the observed actor in his/her action within this world. It was by posing these questions that idealisations and formulations of the social world were seen to be problematic, not accepted naively as ready-made and meaningful beyond all question (Schutz, 1963, p. 269). He also pointed out that the observer lifts out a cross-section of the social actors action from its total factual content (Schutz, 1963, p. 287). Thought objects constructed by the social scientist/researcher, in order to grasp the social reality, have to be founded upon the thought objects of the constructs made by the actors on the social scene, whose behaviour the social scientist has to observe and explain in accordance with the procedural rules of his/her science (Schutz, 1963, p. 273). In verstehen, the particular meaning of the subjective reality, following Webers postulate of subjective interpretation, lies in the meaning for the actor in a given situation, as against the meaning his/her action may have for a partner or a neutral observer: the constructs on the first level, the common-sense constructs, refer to subjective elements, namely the Verstehen of the actors action from his, the actors point of view (Schutz, 1963, p. 274). Second level constructs, or objective ideal typical constructs, must include a reference to the subjective meaning an action has for the actor. Schutz went on to explain that the second order constructs should be understandable for the actor himself/herself (as well as for his fellow men) in terms of common-sense interpretations of everyday life. He wrote of a process of taking a cross-section of our experience of another person and freezing it into a slide by means of a synthesis of recognition (Schutz, 1963, p. 285).

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Schutzs elaboration of the intersubjectivity of meanings between the actor and the social scientist moved away from a phenomenological approach in the strict sense and posited a nominal or conventionalist interpretation. However, this did not necessarily mean that the intersubjectivity of meaning involved a modification of an actors meaning towards the observer/social scientists meaning. But it did imply that it be made meaningful in terms compatible with the observers interpretive understanding. These sorts of methodological considerations are tied to the overall attempt to justify interpretive analyses which are used to report research findings at a level of abstraction which remains faithful to constituent subjects meanings. Also, interpretation is then possible in a wider context. To return to the second consideration, analysis/reporting of the phenomenological accounts per se: I shall very briefly report on the typology of the psychotherapeutic clients self-identity and change desired and show one or two examples of the individual voices. It is not possible in this space to report on the other two typologies or how the three typologies were used by the researcher to interpret the outcomes for clients of psychotherapy over the period of five years. The typology of respondents perceived problems and changes they desired:
TYPE 1: FRUSTRATED MANIPULATOR (N=10)

Primary self-identity was derived from the traditional female role, but the incumbent was dissatisfied with the behaviour of significant others. Emphasis was placed on her inability to push, guide or manipulate othersusually the marital partner, sometimes childrento further achievement; such pressure was seen as legitimate and to the others benefit. There was the wish expressed to change the others orientation or move on to the next stage in material or career terms. This either created or enhanced conflict, but as it remained her location of primary self-identification and related to the ongoing economic status of the marital or family unit, further entrenchment occurred in her emotional, relational and material dependency. (Different paragraphs indicate different voices) He is a chartered accountant, a partner in his own firm, and my decision to go back to pharmacy part-time was my own decision. The domestic chores are still mine, but why should

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he suffer from my choice of work? After all, I had my fun out of working before I was married. I dont enjoy it now, but would like to go overseas again, this time with the family. My main interests in life are people and parties. This presents some problems in all the entertaining involved as my husband is really an independent loner. This is what people say and it is true, but it will change. However we are closer than most couples. We discuss decisions and I get a hearing but he makes the final decisions. He listens to everything I say, then he does exactly what he wants. Every single piece of furniture I paid for and shall take every one also. I have everything I could possibly want, but am so miserably unhappy. Why do we go on so long like thiswe women who are so unhappy?
TYPE 2: ROLE CAPTIVE (N = 18)

This typification could be seen as a later stage of the first type. The individuals still identified primarily in terms of their traditional assigned feminine role (supportive and secondary) but with extreme anguish and the clearly expressed wish to be out of the role and its significant relationship/s. But all were financially, emotionally or relationally locked in. They lacked the necessary skills for economic independence or self-maintenance at the achieved status level, and materiality was an important dimension in their system of values. Also they lacked either emotional independence going beyond the role identification or an alternative dependency relationship to replace the unsatisfactory marital one. I am too insecure in myself to break it up; everything I do is wrong and I always feel full of guilt. I avoid confrontation now; if I say what I am thinking he flies off. Its a diabolical situationhe makes me his mother. But its easier to stay with my unhappiness; I just couldnt do it to himanyhow I have a base as a married woman. There were lots of things I would have liked him to be, including being honest and straightforward in business. He opts out of all the things which we could have shared. The full force of the childrens upbringing fell on me and now they mostly leave me alone.

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I cant communicate with him. We have no sex life at all these days. As I get older and romantic love fades, I need reassurance and communication.
TYPE 3: ROLE-LESS (N = 9)

This was a small category representing a group who had no sense of self-identity because they lacked a traditional female role embodying a satisfying relationship. Their principal aim was to be needed/ wanted/desired by someone else but they were not; so they attempted to look at being independent, but found this impossible. My parents never matured and my childhood is a bitter memory. My father had a PhD in science but always taught at secondary schools and my mother was jealous of my higher IQ.
TYPE 4: ROLE-COLLAPSE (N = 43)

Role collapse occurred through the action of a significant other which was strongly regretted or condemned by the respondent; this occurred after the subject had functioned for a time (whether well or badly) in her primary role which had thereby provided her self-identity. She saw herself as an inadequate self unable to stand alone or independently from the social environment and a search for alternative self-identity followed. Less typically, a self-identity role collapsed through dependency on another other than the marital partner in a pre-existing identificatory relationship which was destroyed through, for example, the death of a parent; or identity was lost or perceived as lost when children left home. There were then fewer people to think of or think for, and attention was focused on the self. He used to tell me I was too independent. He made me become dependent but wanted me as his mother. Then when I was thoroughly dependent he started having affairs. I feel embittered and cold and even wished I could have a nervous breakdown after my husbands affair to draw attention to myself. Now he is impotent most of the time and I want the sex act not for itself, but for wanting to be wanted. That predatory nymphomaniac outshone me at everything,

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In the Types 14, the womens identities arose from perceptions of a traditional female role. Types 5 and 6 were different, showing strong expressions of individuality and independence. Articulately they described self-concepts with little reference to other people. Yet they did orient themselves to a traditional role by centring identity on partial or total rejection of the traditional role.
TYPE 5: PERSONAL IDENTITY/ROLE CLASH (N = 35)

This category included several variations of self-identity where this diverged from the assigned identity associated with a particular key role. Some perceived a smothering by a partner and/or assigned role, but feared rejection. Or this situation involved an active conflict of the individual with the primary assigned role and a consequent push towards an alternative individual identity. This may have resulted from a partner having been seen as over-dependent on the relationship. Other variations included a womans struggle for an area of independence within a crucial dependency/independency relationship with the partner. Or personal change or development may have been overtly restricted by the partner. Where change had occurred in the adequacy/strength or domination/ submission balances, the relationship in role could have been affected through the change to the scale of balances and problems caused. All the time I had to have a goal, but having had worries all through life, I wonder if I am making more. I am exploring my identity, which is a dangerous word. I might go on looking for something which is mythical. Self-image must be built up from insideits no use others saying Im OK. Some friends are wistful for the kind of independence I have, but the ones who mean most to me do value family life and marriage. I have developed a friendship of alternating dependency and guidance whereas before I was always the inadequate and independent one.
TYPE 6: SELF AUTONOMY (N = 5)

Respondents of this type were engaged in a search for an independent, self-contained identity, an authentic true self, transcending assigned role/s. This stage had been reached during the psychotherapeutic process. Descriptions of self in the past contained statements resembling those of respondents currently in the other five types.

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Self is essence and personality, affirming uniqueness, but freedom is the central issue. One must free the self, rather than grow, especially as rubbish may be brought in from an outside life, that is, former life. Life on Earth is different from other forms in that it does allow this freedom. So self-concept or identity is a combination of genetic, environmental and other-life influence. There is no original sin, all people are meant to be perfect, made in Gods image. My adult children are appalled with my ideas and behaviour. Playback in groups gives you more confidence to be what you are, it does not create aspects of self by affirmation. Men and women carry different types of blankets over the self (Hallebone, 1988, p. 277). In this study, 120 participants were interviewed twice. Then, in a third stage of interviewing, sixty-three participants were interviewed after a period of five years had elapsed from the first interview. (Overall, the number reporting improvements in their personal situation was less than one quarter. But obviously, for this present purpose, I am not including any of the quantitative aspects of the study.) It was possible to trace how some of the autobiographical descriptions showed that some participants were able to maintain their sense of individuality or autonomy, but others had found dramatically increased dependence. I have been heavily laden with pills for eight years now. Things are just fair. From lunchtime onwards I get a bit uptight. The doctor doesnt listen to me, nor does he say much, but just says to come back in a month. In the situation Im in, he says I really need them. He also says theyre not addictive, but I really wonder. Often I feel Ive just wasted $20 going there. Nothing happens except he never hesitates to write out a script. He wont hear of me stopping the drugs. Often I get a roaring headache and sometimes my hands are so shaky I cant write and have to print. But Ive been nearly ten years seeing him and on drugs and nothings any better. Its worse if anything. Im reaching the end of my tether. What am I supposed to dolook forward to dying, or what? I have one Xanax and one Serepax at lunchtime, two Surmontil before dinner and one more Surmontil at 8 p.m., then at bed time I have one Rohypnol and one Surmontil. The big question is, should we go on or not? The doctor feels the only way I would go is by meeting someone else, but with

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the guys around, Im better off where I am. Six months ago, my husband told me to go and live at our holiday house, but the business is a partnership and I would end up in the bankruptcy court if I didnt watch the buying carefully. He admits that he is extravagant and I have to take all the responsibility. But when the shop lease runs out Ill get out of the partnership. If I go away, alone, on a trip, I feel I look as though Im on the make with men and I dont like that being thought. Our intimate relationship is not satisfying to me and has not been for some time. I just cant fabricate something I dont feel. If we go on holiday together, we just dont get on. We built a new house and moved in four weeks ago, but Im not happy. If we do stay together Id like to move to Queensland and start again. (Type 2, Role Captive, medical sub-sample, unchanged at the third interview)

Study 2

Reproductive Technology Users

Engaging with the social/ethical debates which continue in various forms in the 2000s (see Hallebone, 1991, 1992b), this study focused on the phenomenological accounts in a different way. (Analysis used thematic constructs only, not individual types.) Again, partial life histories were recounted: twelve women spoke of their use of reproductive technology in Melbourne to provide donated ova leading successfully to the birth of a child (and twins in one instance). Each of the women had given birth using donated ova, with the male partner providing sperm, except for one partnership in which the sperm also were donated. Although this was a much smaller sample than in the psychotherapy clients research, it was nevertheless possible to hear shared experiences in the voices of the women. For example, secrecy was paramount to nearly all. They did not want their child to know their parents had used donated ova. Strong social and cultural pressures to have children were spoken in words like: How come you havent had a child? Your husband will divorce you. Perceptions were held that some people had negative views on IVF (let alone the complications of ova donation): Women who object to IVF either dont want children themselves, or else they have them too easily.

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Single-mindedness in achieving parenthood was illustrated by the lack of alternatives these women had for fulfilment or interests in life: I often think whatever would I be doing now? I would do nothingand have nothing to save up forAs it was, I felt singled out. I would be very bitterI wasnt brought up to have a careercouldnt see much of a life. In conclusions to the articles reporting on this study, my critical theoretical perspective predominated. Even though the sample number was small, elements such as the lack of appropriate biological and reproductive information available to the women, the context of secrecy and social isolation and the evidence of role restriction amounted to an oppressive or repressive cultural context voiced through phenomenological accounts of individuals experiences.

Study 3 Personal Identity and Homelessness


Two separate (social phenomenological) studies of homeless clients of a Melbourne welfare centre explored concepts of home, homelessness and personal identity (see Hallebone, 1997a). One group was of elderly men being relocated from a communal residence to other supported or independent housing and the other was of young people who were homeless or at risk of homelessness. Patterns in the selfdescriptions of these participants included the sense of being rejected by society for the older people and actively rejecting society in the young peoples biographical accounts. The experience of homelessness of which the young people spoke included the importance of staying geographically in their home area (in housing provided by the welfare centre) and the roles played in their lives by friends. A recurring pattern in their life profiles was a gap or absence of having ever had a sense of home. They nearly always alluded to major conflicts in their family of orientation. Often this conflict was accompanied by rigid rules from a parent and the child running away in stressful times. Unique descriptions from indepth interviews with nearly one hundred young people demonstrated, as well, the inclusive nature of their experiences. A typical experience (in the family of orientation) was, You can do what you likewhen you move outwhen you get your own place. Often the ideal place which the young people described was outside, in the country, on an island, on the beach, up in a tree, in the park, in the bush, in a cabin or shack in a remote setting, in the

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wilderness and, occasionally, in a mansion, castle or hammock. Although they wanted to stay geographically at home in the same region of Melbourne, the ideal place was usually distant from human tensions and included being allowed to do what they wanted to do. Here are some of the young voices with biographical reference to the location and friends: I dont get along with many peoplenobodyll touch meI got respect in Box Hill; I got respect in Box Hill for about three years nowA lot of kids talked about me (to the police and youth workers)All the kids here respect me. If theyve got a problem, they come to me; they dont go to the police. I got a couple (of close friends). Ones in Box Hill South, ones in Box Hill North, ones in Doncaster, ones in TemplestoweI keep in touch with them every now and then, give them a call to see how they areOne of my friends works here (Contact Centre) on Fridays. I come in here and talk to her for a couple of hoursthen I might come back the next Friday and talk to her again. Its all we ever do though (Brad). Before I became friends with people here (which was only a few months ago), I used to think that Belgrave was a scum areaall the idiots and the druggos that hung out at the station, the nohopers who werent going to get anywhere in life, and that was just purely because they were stereotypesI was brought up to think that about themI used to be scaredscared shitless excuse my Frenchwalking through that station, Belgraveall those people there and theyd just look at you and youd feel like scum. I used to walk with my head down, but since Ive gotten to know them, I love it, I just love itTheyre a totally different group of people than I thought they were. Thats why Im so against stereotyping nowWhere things were happening used to be the bluestones outside the station. Now the happening spot is our lounge room. As I said todayyou just want to do it all the timeThen it just stopsWere having a few words with them nowIts the same when I go down to visit my old flatmateit just sort of happens; you dont think of it, like you know, theyre gonna mind; its only me and someone elsebut everyone has that attitude and it just builds up (Adrian). Most of the young people mentioned their family of orientation (although they were not asked questions about the familyor why

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they were homeless). They had either rejected or been rejected by their families. But there were exceptions, for example, Kathleen said her happiest place was her family home: because my mums there. She comes up here all the time. I havent seen my father for years and yearsdont get along with my younger sistershes a real bitch and mums new boyfriend I dont really like. (Anna) We had a lot of problems and stuff at home; I wanted to move out very much, but they didnt want me to move outso (going up to Queensland for a year to stay with her mothers best friend, a single parent with two daughtersone Annas age) was sort of a compromiseTheir idea was that either I stayed where I was or went to boarding schoolthey didnt approve of me and my friends and that was a lot of the reason why I wanted to move outand my habits too. (Greg) I broke up with my girlfriend last May; I couldnt be bothered. Id just walked out and no one bothered to follow me; theyd just let me go. My parents moved from Ringwood to Boronia in the middle of the year. Weve been getting on fine while Ive been on the streetsCoolI mean yknow there are times when you just see them too much and youll have a blue about something. Its been happening on and off for more than a year nowevery time, you know, they say, Oh come back; we want you to come back. So I go back and we start arguing and it ends up I get kicked out or Ill leave. Its happened so many times. Ive been so many different places. The young peoples experiences of friends led to friends being regarded in two distinct ways: co-operatively or as problems. For example, Paul: I had this friend. Hed just lost his job and was paying off a mortgage. I had a job and he said, Would you like to move in to help me out? For a while it was alrightWe were always together. If I needed a hand, hed help me out; if he needed a hand, Id help him outThen we started getting on each others nervesjust little things! Id get home from work and hed get home from looking for work and wed both be tired and wed be on each others nerves. People around here are a lot better than where I was. We see three people on a regular basis. One guy comes around fairly often. Two girls we know

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we mainly ringone from Boronia we see a fair bit; another girl, we only ringShes helped us out now and then. Shes going through a rotten time. Were going to be helping her outnot like shes living on our doorstep. We know where each other isIm the sort of person who likes to keep pretty much to myself, but if I need someone or if someone needs me, Ill be there. Joanne spoke about the importance of her female friends and how they had had to rely on each other for mutual support during hard times: My friend, CindyI havent seen her for a while. Shes in the hospital. She just had a baby n thatshe was homeless atI thinkthe age of fourteen to fifteenshes now eighteen, but shes really happy now cos shes just had a baby and her and her boyfriend have a place n thatIf she ever needs help or I ever need help, we always go to each other. I go crazy if I cant talk to my friend and tell her all the gossip n that. One of my friends only lives up the road, so sometimes I walk up there and see her. I dont go out much with my girlfriends. I go out more with guys. I find them more interesting and fun. Many friends created more problems for the young people. Kathleen saw a lack of privacy and respect from her friends: I think young people are envious and thinkOh youre so lucky. Youve got your own flatYouve got your own home. Its really cool; you can do what you want. But its not that easyBecause we live close to Belgrave, a lot of our friends come up a lot of the time, but lately people have been eating our food and taking everything for granted, not like being respectfulrespectful towards everythingWe had a word with them todayIts hard to say it. I havent been sleeping that much, because people dont leave till late at night. I havent been to a friends place for a long timeLots of people hang around there (Belgrave station). Its where you meet people n stuffor here, or at Matts house. Or this other guysDempseysMost of my friends dont go to school and live off their parents. Theyve got it very easymost of them have dropped out.

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Study 4 Women and Gambling


A phenomenological perspective has been used to illuminate some experiences of various participants in the new gambling culture in Australia: casino gamblers, problem gamblers and also individuals affected by the gambling of others (Hallebone, 1997b, 1999a, 1999b). One Saturday night gambler had her entire gambling career mapped out in a dream. The dream directed her to visit electronic gaming (poker) machines over the Victorian State border just before the Melbourne (temporary) casino opened: We had no money left at all, we were completely broke. We nearly didnt go on the trip because we had financial pressures from the second marriage and buying a house. I fell asleep in the car on the way and dreamed exactly how it would happen as if it was mapped out in my brain. At the moment I am learning professional blackjack and will, in time, make it my full-time work. There is a mathematics of it and true counting when to bet. I won on one in a million chance before. Now I am using my scientific methodI came in contact with a teacher one year ago. I will know when Im ready to bet on blackjack. Poker machines are a waste of money. So many people waste so much. My win made me wiser. My teacher wants to form a syndicate to play an all-Australia circuit and put me in it. But Ill stay independent. I am focused. Im very disappointed with this (Casino)Im just back from Las Vegas which is well planned. People, if gambling, need serviceplus, because most go home with empty pockets. Another serious female gambler: I was a croupier at Burswood (Western Australia). (Tonight) I have just called in the pit boss for a surveillance inspection. But I walked away. There are too many foreigners here. I first sat down behind the row of ethnics. I watch the flow of the game as a punter now not a dealer. I know there is a high and low streak. I made a bet but it was ignored. One witness said they saw me place the bet. Butso much abuseI said, dont tell me how to play. I dont like the temper of the Casino. They will have to open more tables. Whats the point of going? I cant get near a table usually. I love blackjack as wellbut tried to complain at the baccarat tablehour upon hour wait-

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ing. We should just walk in and sit down. Tonight I would have had more satisfaction if I had taken the local newsagency Tattslotto tickets or played the local dollar poker machines. By now I would be at least $100 ahead as well as having the money to spend on the motel. Through my family (my father) I have gambling in the blood. Of fifteen female Saturday night gamblers interviewed, there were two main categories in the meanings attributed to the visit. Some women initiated the visit (usually with a partner, but it was the womans idea to go and she was developing a career as a blackjack or baccarat player). Others were there for a social night out (Hallebone, 1997b). Autobiographical accounts of non-gamblers harmed by gambling (Hallebone, 1999a) included the experiences of Kay: Kay was the daughter of a heavy gambler and the ex-partner of a gambler. Kay explained that she accepted the harmless nature of sweeps at the office, a raffle or Tattslotto ticket once a week but only because they did not involve the loss of food and clothes for children. Gaming machines were, for her, an idiots game and a farce for the community with the government making the profits. Her father was an alcoholic and heavy gambler on horse and dog races. In her early family life Kay remembered that her father dominated her mother and the family, that the two children were not even allowed to butter toastit would be too noisy. But if they went into the hallway to speak, the father would accuse them of whispering behind his back. Her brother grew up to be domineering, selfcentred and wanting everything his own way. Similarly, Kays grandfather used to give the children threepence or sixpence to piss off so he could listen to the trots and dogs in peace. Life revolved around studying the form for next time. The men in the family would read the newspaper from the back to the front, taking all day. When Kay was seven years old, her mother had to do shift work, so they could keep the house and basic necessities. If not, we would have lost it (from the fathers gambling losses). Kay had to be housekeeper and look after her four-year-old brother who was a rotten little shit, an uncontrollable bully. By the time she was fourteen or fifteen she was a copy typist and knew what her father was earning. His income as a

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tradesman was substantial, but his gambling was so bad that if Kay had not gone to work to augment her mothers paid work, their house would have been lost. If Kay upset her father in any way at all, he would become violent. She was brought up in an environment which was both threatening and intimidating. Her father was in a bad mood 99.9 per cent of the time because he had lost money gambling. The only time he was happy was when he had won. Kay cannot bear the radio or television noise of race meetings or even other similar sounds such as commentators at football matches. The monotonous drone reminds her of a sad childhood. Unfortunately she had picked a lemon and married someone much the same as her father. He had recently left the family. His custom was to listen to racing and football in the garage with his friends, but Kay was expected to bring them beer from the refrigerator in the house. In more recent times she had refused to do this. A woman had to do it, but they were pretending they were big shots, having money, in fantasy from winning. Kay had completed the VCE and a post-secondary educational course, but found further studies too expensive. There were other tragedies in life including her own serious illness and her heroin-dependent daughter wanting to granny dump her so she could take over Kays house. Kay was forty-four years old and a loner because her children made it obvious they did not like her male companion: accordingly, she had lost him. They accepted their father having girlfriends, but not their mother having a boyfriend. She was a reformed alcoholic, had been drunk for two years when her mother died, but that was fourteen years ago (Hallebone, 1999a, pp. 1617). In another study, some relevant gambling experiences of women in culturally diverse communities were explored (Hallebone, 1999b). For example, some Greek women in Melbourne were said to be attracted to a culture of gambling because, traditionally, they were largely excluded from those informal gambling pastimes (card games) which distracted men from family activities for long periods of time: Gambling is very rarely open for women. Male gambling is more open, because card games take so long; a card game could be for twenty-four hours. Men were either away having affairs or gambling. It was very big at the start of settlement

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here, a lot of families started playing. It was at epidemic level. But with machine gambling, one can zip down to the local and lose $20 in half an hour. The local is where you go, which transcends the social, its just where (as people often say) they have just got to go down there. If it is to be an outing, then they go to the Casino. The feeling I get is that they feel they will miss out on a big chance if they dont go. It is like waiting for a bus to go. Pur tha pae? How far to go before it comes to me? The idea of predestined (like whom, for example, one marries, the person anointed for you)women stay in bad marriages because it is their luck predestined (Greek Welfare Society). A phenomenological study of ten self-identified problem gamblers was conducted with clients of metropolitan problem gambling counselling services in Melbourne. Explorations of the meanings and experiences attached to gambling by these participants took place within a framework of biographical accounts of opportunity and risk, personal identity and citizenship. As in the other studies, everyone appeared to speak in a free atmosphere, giving time and interpretations generously. Detailed information was given about work, leisure and gambling and a continuing focus was on the range, differences, richness and diversity of the womens autobiographical accounts. Several common threads of experience were heard as well. For example, all the women were suffering from depression or depression and anxiety (Hallebone, 1999b, p. 110). Various voices are arranged, in the original article, under their experiences of gambling now, gambling before electronic gaming machines were introduced to Victoria, women and gambling, personal loss, boredom and loneliness, marital and social conflict, getting money to gamble, gambling and alcohol, self-exclusion from gambling venues and the changed social atmosphere around gambling venues in Victoria. Concluding social theoretical ideas are discussed. One is that the women use risky gambling behaviour to regain a sense of identity and worth in a process they perceive as leading to addiction. During the process the sense of risk was temporarily lost. Previously subordinate women who desperately wanted to control their own money had lost the ability to control their own incomes even when they had responsibilities only for themselves. Nearly all of them had suffered in their familial lives from violence and abuse and/or alcoholism from significant others.

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Very little has been published about the socio-demographic profiles and experiences of risky gamblers from those statistics which do exist on the numbers who call for help through counselling services set up by the State. Here are a few examples of the voices. The problem gambling participants suffered isolation in their lives: I love themI put so much in, 10, 20, 30 and another 10 to get my money back. Being on my own, I get to meet peopleif Im lonely, bored or upsetgo straight to the RSLshow a card or sign myself in. A few months ago I had the whole (pension) cheque and did the lotthen from one dollar left got $100, $200, (saw it) go up to $300 then got the whole pension back ($360 to last a fortnight). But it was earlyonly nine o-clockI didnt want to go home aloneI lost all of it (again) and left with $10. Had to get a friend and mate to help out with money. Ive seen $6,000 being won and all put back in (Daphne). People in the arts dont interact any morenowwith postmodernismtheres no iconography with which people can relate and interact (Hannah). Not only was marital conflict frequently described but also social friction. Pokies brought jobsbut I see it all around meI see it everywheremarriages splitting upsee people owing money and conflictwomen cheat and lie to their husbandsI see quite a few (Daphne). After being separated on and off over the last two years, weve separated since 1997. We had grown apart. We had a settlement and everything was paid off, including the house we had together. The house was almost taken away. Ninety per cent of the debts of my husband with the house came from my gambling. His only gambling was Tattslotto tickets each week and he used to keep saying that if he won we could do what we liked. But having lots of money in the bank doesnt make a happy marriage. We had to part to save our selves. He had to cash in his superannuation. If he had taken care of this earlier it would not have happenedfour weeks ago he had a heart

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attack and was off work(he) is paying for overweight and heredity. I had the two younger children (of six children) with me when we first split, but was spending $300 a week (on EGMselectronic gaming machines) which distressed me and I said I cant even look after myself let alone them. I have to help myself before I can help them (Jill). Problems with my partner made me feel worthless. Ive had bad experiences with men. As a father, he is a very good father, but that always makes me feel lesser. Pokies gave reliefthings spinning aroundbut I couldnt stay there forever. He didnt think I was good enough, wanted me to gonow he says please come back. I had to deal with the partner problem and (then the) gambling problem would go (Sally). Gambling has destroyed the middle-aged womans outing. Whereas they used to go out for lunch, now its gambling and they dont really socialise with each other. And there are far too many problem gamblers. Everyone is so much more stressed now. There is much more angerbanging hell on the machines and much more aggression. People used to dress up to go outits very disappointing now. They dont bother. Now its not a night out, but looking for money, not a social thing at all. People feel that if theyve gambled enough, theyre looking for a return they think is owed to them (Jenny). Although some of these participants were not still gambling, getting money to gamble had been a problem. While making strategic efforts to limit their gambling, the majority who continued to play EGMs were in serious debt: Two years ago, I saw in the paper the chance to mortgage the house for $22,000I would be given the money and pay $90 per fortnight, but nothing off the principalI have still paid nothing off thatI signed a paper saying I was going into business. Being on a Workcare pension, the money was fantasticwe bought a car and the rest went on gambling. I have paid back $10,000 out of my husbands government superannuationmy mind got so wrapped, I couldnt thinkI still owe $12,000 and may have to sell the house to pay it back (Dion).

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Conclusion
These brief excerpts have demonstrated several uses of a social phenomenological perspective to highlight the voices of individuals and their constructions of meaning within significant social contexts. Also, following Alfred Schutzs description of wider social realities being discernible within individuals own words/meanings, relevant patterns of shared experiences have been shown by the researcher. While every individuals experience and voice is unique, it is not unique in all senses. In fact, and as the unifying theme or pivot of these studies demonstrates, we describe ourselves with reference to recognisable social meanings so that the listener may understandas nearly as possibleexactly what we mean! And the recognisable social meanings are patterned or shared experiences (Schutzs synthesis of recognition).

References
Berger, P. (1963), Invitation to Sociology, Doubleday, New York. Berger, P. (1967), The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, Doubleday, New York. Blaikie, N. (1993), Approaches to Social Enquiry, Polity, Cambridge. Blaikie, N. (2000), Designing Social Research, Polity, Cambridge. Bulmer, M. (1982), The Uses of Social Research: Social Investigation in Public Policy-making, George Allen & Unwin, London. Glaser, B. & Strauss, A. (1967), The Discovery of Grounded Theory, Aldine, Chicago. Giddens, A. (1974), Positivism and Sociology, Heinemann, London. Giddens, A. (1976), New Rules of Sociological Method, Hutchinson, London. Giddens, A. (1979), Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis, Macmillan, London. Giddens, A. (1984), The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, Polity, Cambridge. Halfpenny, P. (1979), The Analysis of Qualitative Data, Sociological Review, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 799825. Hallebone, E. (1988), Women, Psychotherapy and Dependency, Australian Journal of Social Issues, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 26886. Hallebone, E. (1991), Non-genetic Mothers and their own Children: Infertility and IVF Donor Birth, Australian Journal of Social Issues, vol. 25, no. 2, May, pp. 12236.

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Hallebone, E. (1992a), Measuring Self-identity Change: Methodological issues in Longitudinal Qualitative Research, Quality and Quantity, vol. 26, no. 26, pp. 117. Hallebone, E. (1992b), Reproductive Technology, Repressive Culture and non-genetic Mothers, Issues in Reproductive and Genetic Engineering, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 2316. Hallebone, E. (1997a), Homelessness and Marginality in Australia: Young and Old People excluded from Independence. In M. J. Huth and T. Wright (eds), International Critical Perspectives on Homelessness, Praeger, Westport, CT, pp. 69103. Hallebone, E. (1997b), Saturday night at the Melbourne Casino, Australian Journal of Social Issues, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 36590. Hallebone, E. (1999a), Autobiographical Interpretations of the Development of Harmful Gambling in Victoria: Cultural Context and Gender, Just Policy, No. 16, September, pp. 1120. Hallebone, E. (1999b), Women and the new Gambling Culture in Australia, Loisir et Societ/Society and Leisure, vol. 22, no. 1, Spring, pp. 10125. Keat, R. & Urry, J. (1975), Social Theory as Science, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. Jennings, B. (1983), Interpretive Social Science and Policy Analysis. In D. Callahan & B. Jennings (eds), Ethics: The Social Sciences and Policy Analysis, Plenum Press, New York. Layder, D. (1998), Sociological Practice: Linking Theory and Social Research, Sage, London. Ritzer, G. (1996), Sociological Theory (4th ed.), McGraw-Hill, New York. Schutz, A. (1963), Common Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action. In M. Natanson (ed.), Philosophy of the Social Sciences: A Reader, Random House, New York, pp. 27985. Schutz, A. (1976), The Phenomenology of the Life World, Heinemann, London. Smart, B. (1985), Michel Foucault, Tavistock, London.

Notes on Contributors

Robyn Barnacle is part of a group within the Research and Development Section at RMIT doing research and policy development in the area of research education. Robyn has a PhD in philosophy from Monash University where she undertook a phenomenological inquiry into the relationship between thought and desire. In Robyns current research projects her interest in phenomenology/hermeneutics has been directed into the area of scholarship around research practice and education. Laura Brearley has been active in adult education for twenty-three years. She is interested in the experience of transition at work and in alternative forms of data representation. She integrates a range of creative arts into her teaching and her research work. Lauras PhD incorporates multi-media, poetry, art and music. The title of the PhD is Exploring the Creative Voice in an Academic Context: Representations of the Experience of Transition in Organisational Change. Associate Professor Erica Hallebone is a specialist in research methodology with a particular interest in ethnography. Her research reflects issues of social justice and interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research (sociology, psychology and anthropology), especially in the conditions and forms of psychosocial identity of the individual in different social contexts. Included in these contexts are theoretical and practical analyses of the bases of psychological counselling practices and outcomes; homelessness of young and old people in society; intergenerational attitudes; social and psychosocial impacts of new forms of gambling in Australia. Other recent research foci include the role of volunteerism in the community; effects of socio-demographic decline in rural Australia and attempts by local communities to achieve sustainability; and the organisational dynamics of diversity management.

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Gloria Latham lectures at RMIT University in Literacy and Drama Education. Her doctoral thesis is an investigation of wonder and the child, its title: Wonderment: The Story of the Narrator, the Child and the World. Additional research interests include reflective teaching and learning, and journals as a learning source. Gloria is the first year co-ordinator in the Bachelor of Education Program and is undertaking a six-year study on transition to university. Paul Sharkey recently completed a PhD at RMIT University where he investigated teacher response to programs implemented in a particular school to develop the religious ethos of the teaching staff. Paul currently leads a professional development team responsible for developing the religious ethos in the Catholic sector of education in South Australia. Pauls current research interest lies in the efficacy of strategies commonly employed in schools for the professional formation of teachers. Anthony Welch is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Nursing and Public Health, RMIT University. His PhD thesis is concerned with men and depression from the human becoming school of thought. Anthonys areas of interest include mental health, mens health, qualitative researchin particular, phenomenologyheuristic enquiry and grounded theory. He is also interested in the areas of spirituality and creative/expressive arts therapy.

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