One of the core strengths of phenomenology is its application to practice. While I was guided by an understanding of its philosophical underpinnings, applied
phenomenology is fundamentally a practice of writing that reflects on and in practice. This fosters and strengthens an embodied ontology and epistemology (van Manen, 2014). Van Manen describes the text as “an invitation to openness” (2016, p. 4), and from there the practice of phenomenology may begin. I maintained an open attitude to the data throughout the research process, and van Manen’s reduction (van Manen & van Manen, 2014) was utilised in my study. Openness is hermeneutic reduction (C. Adams & van Manen, 2008; van Manen & Adams, 2010) where researchers need to reflect and incorporate their pre-understanding, framework and biases. This involves a different way of knowing the world (van Manen, 2014)as theory ‘thinks’ the world, and practice ‘grasps’ the world practically. In the human sciences,
objectivity—one’s orientation to the object, and subjectivity—the need to be strong in our orientation to the object of study in a unique and personal way, are not exclusive. Instead they find their meaning and significance in the oriented relation that the researcher establishes with the object and subject of this experience (van Manen, 1990). This object of study is effective with respect to the everyday practice of living where risk is situated. It offers insights and meanings for people in their world–in all its “livingness” (van Manen, 2016, p. 6).
Human experience is what we all have in common. The nature of risk while living with a recent diagnosis of dementia is a deeply personal and sometimes private matter and the method chosen needs to reflect this. Phenomenology is intuitive and reflective and uses practised modes of questioning to articulate the structures of meaning embedded in lived experience (van Manen, 1990). Its intersubjective focus
sets up a dialogic relation with the phenomenon, bringing the researcher into closer contact with lived experience. This is the place where the person and world [subject and object] are not separate but are one together—the “hermeneutic
phenomenological consciousness” (Greatrex-White, 2008, p. 1845), resulting in a deep understanding and description of human meaning. This intensive focus was critical for my study as I have not experienced the phenomenon of risk while living with dementia and I was relying on this ‘coming together’ in order to understand “how the everyday, inter-subjective world is constituted” (Schwandt, 2000) from the
participants’ perspectives.
3.7.1. Application to the research process
The participants in this study had a diagnosis of dementia and the study’s method needed to accommodate flexibility in the data collection and techniques of analysis. One of phenomenology’s core strengths is flexibility (Pringle, Hendry, & McLafferty, 2011), and this was welcome as its method is not without its dilemmas and
challenges (Koch, 1995). Van Manen (1990, p. 79) confirms this view:
“Making something of a text or of a lived experience by interpreting its meaning is more accurately a process of insightful invention, discovery or disclosure—grasping and formulating a thematic understanding is not a rule-bound process but a ‘free’ act of seeing meaning”.
Van Manen’s method may be utilised rigorously or it may be adapted to particular needs (Heinonen, 2015). This was a sensitive research area for which my
professional expertise was harnessed to appreciate the livingness of the participants as they negotiated a complex and transformative life situation. Hermeneutic
phenomenology provided the conceptual ‘tools’ to ascertain the meaning of risk at a particular time. It made a significant contribution to the understanding and
interpretation of the research question and the complexity of the phenomenon of risk and all its possibilities.
Phenomenology needs to be understood and practised as method and identified as a style of thinking—a manner of orienting to experience as we live through it—as it
embodies the research question. Van Manen (2008) further adds that a proper understanding of phenomenology can be gained only through doing it! For van Manen (1984) a phenomenological question must not only be made clear, be understood, but also be ‘lived’. To this end I began ‘doing it’ through the reflexive questioning of the research question that went beyond just writing it down at the beginning of the study. It did not appear in a ‘light bulb’ moment—but evolved over time, with much thought and reflection. Munhall (2013) also reminds us that once the researcher has decided on the research question, they have introduced their own learned knowledge and assumptions. My biases and assumptions were not
bracketed or set aside, but were embedded in and essential to the development of the question. Hertz (1997) suggests that one might bring different selves or roles to represent them in the research endeavour, and they are all likely to influence the process. The reader must be drawn into the question in such a way that they become as interested in the nature of the phenomenon as I had over the past five years. This phenomenological questioning then demands that I “question deeply the very thing which is being questioned by the question” (van Manen, 1984, p. 46).
In summary, this chapter has demonstrated the importance of the philosophical contribution of hermeneutic phenomenology with its research priorities of meaning and interpretation. As a particular form of qualitative research methodology,
phenomenology has a complex interrelatedness between philosophy and a method of human research. This relationship affirms the critical role played by philosophy in this study’s development; its concepts with their philosophical underpinnings, and its terms of reference which gave the analysis a philosophical direction and credence. The phenomenological concepts such as fusion and temporality allowed for a flexibility and applicability of thought that transcends time and place, and permitted adjustment between the data and its interpretation. With the emphasis on joint understandings, hermeneutic concepts of fusion of horizons and temporality provide the space and justification for the historical and socio-cultural dimensions of the study whichinfluence and exert meaning upon the lived experience. Meaning that never stands still however, as it is sought at a particular time and in a particular place. The importance of the nature of hermeneutic phenomenology’s epistemology and ontology is therefore understood within those dimensions. Its thinking is the
corpus of scholars and its inclusive world view informed and enlivened the direction of this study.
CHAPTER 4
A PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH METHOD
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
(Walt Whitman: When I heard the learn’d astronomer)
This chapter presents elements of both philosophical and practical application to the research design of this study. These elements and their interrelatedness provide a coherent approach to the selection of the study’s philosophical approach and method. This enables a logical progression in explicating its analysis, interpretation and trustworthiness of the study (Silverman & Marvasti, 2008).