‘Shared intelligibility’ and two reflexive strategies as methods of supporting ‘responsible decisions’ in a hermeneutic phenomenological study

Hermeneutic phenomenologists propose that researchers inescapably bring themselves into their research because interpretation must inevitably be influenced by their contexts and pre-understandings. They propose that interpretation is a dynamic and active part of the construction of a text’s meaning, and involvement in this construction process leads to deep empathic understanding of others’ experience, reappraisal of accepted social and cultural systems, and a level of self-enlightenment. The strengths of the hermeneutic methodological approach have led to its use in a number of disciplines, however, there remains concerns about interpretative validity. It is widely acknowledged that in order to support rigour and validity in hermeneutic studies, researchers are required to develop and integrate strategies within the research process to promote awareness of the interplay between their pre-understandings and interpretation. This paper discusses how episodic interviewing which capitalises on ‘shared intelligibility’, and the reflexive strategies of ‘oppositional arrangement of perspectives’ and ‘backgrounding’ were used to shed light on data from a study of the experiences and views of nursing home nurses regarding their occupational role and status, and work identity

Sharing a different voice: Attending to stories in collaborative writing

Through three stories, we hope to reveal how sometimes contradictory or unrecognizable aspects of our lives, selves, and stories can create tensions in the collaborative writing endeavor. We begin with a story that illuminates some of the narrative tensions that surface during a decade of writing collaboratively. In an effort to navigate these tensions, we explore two further stories in dialogue as a way to reveal how dominant narratives shape our lives and the stories we might tell. One aim of sharing these stories is to reveal how problematic ways of being are often inseparable from one’s cultural legacy. Making previously obscured narratives visible paves the way for imaginary leaps that are necessary for change. We hope these insights are useful for other writers and collaborators and those who seek caring, responsive, and nurturing writing relationships yet realize this journey can be problematic

Dialogue as Moral Paradigm: Paths Toward Intercultural Transformation

The Council of Europe’s 2008 White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue: ‘living together as equals in dignity’ points to the need for shared values upon which intercultural dialogue might rest. In order, however, to overcome the monologic separateness that threatens community, we must educate ourselves to recognize the dialogism of our humanity and to engage in deep encounters with others with a mature skepticism of all dogmatisms, including our own. In order to aid us in reaching the necessary insight, the author calls upon Bakhtin’s ideas of the dialogism of every utterance and of the unity and heteroglossia of language, Gadamer’s hermeneutical experience that shakes us loose from what we think we know, and Levinas’s description of that transcendent ideal of a dialogue beyond reciprocity. These perspectives break open our certainty that tribalism and individualism are fundamental, placing them instead as secondary phenomena that, though powerful, pronounce neither the initial nor the final word on our life together

"Engaging with birth stories in pregnancy: a hermeneutic phenomenological study of women's experiences across two generations"

BACKGROUND: The birth story has been widely understood as a crucial source of knowledge about childbirth. What has not been reported is the effect that birth stories may have on primigravid women's understandings of birth. Findings are presented from a qualitative study exploring how two generations of women came to understand birth in the milieu of other's stories. The prior assumption was that birth stories must surely have a positive or negative influence on listeners, steering them towards either medical or midwifery-led models of care. METHODS: A Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used. Twenty UK participants were purposively selected and interviewed. Findings from the initial sample of 10 women who were pregnant in 2012 indicated that virtual media was a primary source of birth stories. This led to recruitment of a second sample of 10 women who gave birth in the 1970s-1980s, to determine whether they were more able to translate information into knowledge via stories told through personal contact and not through virtual technologies RESULTS: Findings revealed the experience of 'being-in-the-world' of birth and of stories in that world. From a Heideggerian perspective, the birth story was constructed through 'idle talk' (the taken for granted assumptions of things, which come into being through language). Both oral stories and those told through technology were described as the 'modern birth story'. The first theme 'Stories are difficult like that', examines the birth story as problematic and considers how stories shape meaning. The second 'It's a generational thing', considers how women from two generations came to understand what their experience might be. The third 'Birth in the twilight of certainty,' examines women's experience of Being in a system of birth as constructed, portrayed and sustained in the stories being shared. CONCLUSIONS: The women pregnant in 2012 framed their expectations in the language of choice, whilst the women who birthed in the 1970s-1980s framed their experience in the language of safety. For both, however, the world of birth was the same; saturated with, and only legitimised by the birth of a healthy baby. Rather than creating meaningful understanding, the 'idle talk' of birth made both cohorts fearful of leaving the relative comfort of the 'system', and of claiming an alternative birth

The effects of online negative word‐of‐mouth on dissatisfied customers:A frustration–aggression perspective

Conceptualizing how customers construe online negative word‐of‐mouth (nWOM) following failure experiences remains unsettled, leaving providers with inconclusive recovery strategy programmes. This empirical study recognizes online nWOM as a co‐created encounter between the complainant (i.e., the initiator of the online nWOM) and the recipient (i.e., the consumer who engages with the online nWOM), examining their idiosyncrasies to discern their understanding of the experience. It introduces frustration–aggression theory to online WOM literature, recognizing that it can support a higher‐order understanding of phenomena. Through phenomenological hermeneutics, interviews and focus groups, data were collected from millennials in Albania and Kosovo that provided accounts of nuanced and distinctive online nWOM realities. The emerged insights extended extant theory to a three‐fold online nWOM typology (i.e., lenient online nWOM, moderate online nWOM and severe online nWOM) recognizing the negative impact customers have on a provider, which is controlled by frustration–aggression tags. Frustration–aggression variations across online nWOM led to the construct of three types of customers that engage in online nWOM, namely tolerable online nWOM customers, rigorous online nWOM customers and confrontational online nWOM customers. Findings culminated with satisfactory recovery strategies aligned to customer inferences regardless of the nWOM context

The Body Dances: Carnival Dance and Organization

Building on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Maurice Merleau-Ponty we seek to open up traditional categories of thought surrounding the relation `body-organization' and elicit a thought experiment: What happens if we move the body from the periphery to the centre? We pass the interlocking theoretical concepts of object-body/subject-body and habitus through the theoretically constructed empirical case of `carnival dance' in order to re-evaluate such key organizational concepts as knowledge and learning. In doing so, we connect with an emerging body of literature on `sensible knowledge'; knowledge that is produced and preserved within bodily practices. The investigation of habitual appropriation in carnival dance also allows us to make links between repetition and experimentation, and reflect on the mechanism through which the principles of social organization, whilst internalized and experienced as natural, are embodied so that humans are capable of spontaneously generating an infinite array of appropriate actions. This perspective on social and organizational life, where change and permanence are intricately interwoven, contrasts sharply with the dominant view in organization studies which juxtaposes change/ creativity and stability