Week 5: Phenomenology & Phemonenography

Wilson (2002)

Phenomenology

Phenomenology is a philosophical school concerned with how people make sense of the world. It examines how a person's consciousness organises and classifies his or her knowledge and experience.
It originated through the work of Edmund Husserl and was expanded further by Alfred Schutz. According to some interpretations it can also be a methodological approach.

Aim

• to comprehend the meaning of things as seen through the eyes and mind of particular groups or individuals (Trowler - PhD tutor)
• to study human phenomena without considering questions of their causes, their objective reality, or even their appearances (Wilson, 2002)
• to study how human phenomena are experienced in consciousness, in cognitive and perceptual acts, as well as how they may be values or appreciated aesthetically (Wilson, 2002)
• to understand how persons construct mearning

Phenomenology is not a hypothesis testing mode of research (although it may result in hypotheses that we may wish to test by other means), nor is it one that must be guided by theoretical models. Rather, one is urged to get as close as possible to what the participants in the behaviour of interest are experiencing. Rather, It is about the nature of human experience and the meaning that people attach to their experiences. In trying to arrive at this kind of understanding, the researcher is asked to 'bracket', or suspend belief in the phenomena of the external world, to put them aside and focus on the consciousness of that world (Wilson 2002).

Definitions

• Typifications: shared understandings of categories

• Commonsense knowledge: groups of typifications comprise 'commonsense knowledge' for communities and this allows them to impose meaning on the world (Trowler). 

• Phenomenography: 'drawing understandings of the world' (Trowler)

• Intersubjectivity: experiencing the world with and through others. Human experience of the world is 'intersubjective'. Whatever meaning we create has its roots in human actions, and the totality of social artefacts and cultural objects is grounded in human activity (Wilson, 2002)

People construct their social life through interaction with others. It does not matter if their interpretations are 'true' - this is not a concern of phenomenology. 

Phenomenography

Phenomenography is a method of research, as opposed to phenomenology which is a philosophical school of thought. That said, it is still largely based on phenomenological tenets. 

Aim: to examine the variation in 'ways of seeing something'. Schutz's methodology starts from the idea that the difference between social research and physical sciences research is that the former involves the participation of 'research objects' (i.e. people) who are 'themselves interpreting the social world that we, as scientists, are also aiming to analyse. (Wilson 2002)

Outcome:  various categories of description called an 'outcome space'. These are usually related to each other, often in a hierarchical format, where those above include but go beyond the descriptions of those below. 

How does it work? Usually by interviewing, followed by detailed analysis of interview transcriptions to identify the 'outcome space'. In analysing the world it is inevitable that we employ the same methods of interpretation as the person whom we are studying. Therefore the social scientist must adopt the position of the 'disinterested observer': he or she has no involvement in the life of the observee. The goals of the observee 'are not of any practical interest, but only of cognitive interest' (Wilson 2002).

By operating in such a manner the researcher builds models of human action, of which the general 'postulates' are:

1. the postulate of logical consistency, whereby the objective validity of the scientist's constructs are guaranteed and are distinguished from the constructs of everyday life;
2. the postulate of subjective interpretation, whereby the scientist can refer '...all kinds of human action or their result to the subjective meaning such action or result of an action had for the actor.", and
3. the postulate of adequacy: that is, the constructs created by the researcher should be understandable by the individual social actor and his/her fellows. Compliance with this postulate ensures that the scientific constructs are consistent with the constructs of common-sense experience of the social world (Wilson 2002).

Schutz also examines how socially-derived knowledge originates and, again, uses ideal types to explore this phenomenon. Apart from ourselves, as the central (to our minds) figures in social interaction, he suggests that the sources of socially-acquired knowledge can be seen as four ideal types:

1. the eyewitness, that is, someone who reports to me something that he or she has observed in the world within that person's reach;
2. the insider: someone who, because of his relationship to a group which is more direct than my own, is able to report some event, or the opinions of others, with the authority of sharing the same system of relevance as the other members of the group. I accept the insider's information as 'true' or valid, at least in part, because the insider's knowledge of the context of the situation is deeper than my own;
3. the analyst: someone who shares my system of relevances, who has collected information and organized that information in conformity with that system of relevance; and
4. the commentator: someone who does not share my system of relevances, but who has collected information in the same way as the analyst and has presented that information in such a way that I can form 'a sufficiently clear and precise knowledge of the underlying deviating system of relevances' (Wilson 2002).

Again, each of us may, at different times and in different circumstances, take roles that fit these ideal types.

Methodology vs Method

Wilson points out that people often misuse the term 'methodology' by using it simply to describe the 'method' of conducting a research study. He states that methodology "is prior to method and more fundamental, it provides the philosophical groundwork for methods. To state one's methodological position is to describe one's view of the nature of reality: for the positivist, the methodological position is that the facts of the world represent real objects, while for the phenomenologist, the world (or at least the one he/she chooses to explore) is one of intersubjectively constructed meanings" (Wilson 2002).