Writing Our Lived Experience: Beyond the (Pale) Hermeneutic?

Abstract

In this paper, we make a case for an alternative epistemology of research based on the hermeneutic-phenomenology of Max van Manen (1990). This interpretive approach to understanding the nature of a social phenomenon involves the researcher in making explicit the meaning of a particular lived experience, and generating a pedagogical thoughtfulness in his or her readers. The aim of hermeneutic-phenomenology is to create a dialogical text which resonates with the experiences of readers while, at the same time, evoking a critical reflexivity about their own pedagogical actions.