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Hermeneutics
Introduction
Written Record
There are many different ways to analyse qualitative data Hermeneutics is one approach to analysing and interpreting qualitative data
Research Method
Philosophical Assumptions
Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics focuses primarily on the meaning of qualitative data, especially textual data The purpose of using hermeneutics is to aid human understanding It helps the qualitative researcher in business and management to understand what people say and do, and why
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Hermeneutics defined
Hermeneutics is primarily concerned with understanding and interpreting the meaning of a text or text-analogue
Interpretation, in the sense relevant to hermeneutics, is an attempt to make clear, to make sense of an object of study. This object must, therefore, be a text, or a text-analogue, which in some way is confused, incomplete, cloudy, seemingly contradictory - in one way or another, unclear. The interpretation aims to bring to light an underlying coherence or sense (Taylor 1976: 153)
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Hermeneutics
Hermeneutic concepts
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Historicity The hermeneutic circle Prejudice Autonomization Distanciation Appropriation Engagement
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1. Historicity
Historicity refers to the thesis that who we are is through and through historical Who we are is a function of the historical circumstances and community that we find ourselves in, the language we speak, the historically evolving habits and practice we appropriate, the temporally conditioned choices we make Hermeneutics defends the ontological claim that human beings are their history (Wachterhauser, 1986: 7)
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Hermeneutics suggests that prejudice, prejudgement or prior knowledge plays an important part in our understanding
3. Prejudice
Hermeneutics suggests that understanding always involves interpretation; interpretation means using one's own preconceptions so that the meaning of the object can become clear to us (Gadamer, 1975: 358) The critical task of hermeneutics then becomes one of distinguishing between true prejudices, by which we understand, from the false ones by which we misunderstand (Gadamer, 1976b: 124) As researchers we need to become aware of how our own views, biases, culture and personal history have a significant impact on how we view the world
Our attempt to understand a text always involves some prior knowledge or expectation of what the text is about. In fact we cannot understand a text unless we have some understanding of the language
Hermeneutics
4. Autonomization
Ricoeur (1981) makes an important distinction between verbal speech and written text He says that the author's meaning, once it is inscribed in a text, takes on a life of its own. This process of autonomization takes place whenever speech is inscribed in a text This means that the text now has an autonomous, objective existence independent of the author. Once something is published or in the public domain, it is virtually impossible to take it back
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5. Distanciation
Distanciation refers to the inevitable distance that occurs in time and space between the text and its original author on the one hand, and the readers of the text (the audience) on the other Since the text takes on a life of its own, it becomes dissociated from the original author, the originally intended audience, and even its original meaning
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Types of hermeneutics
Pure hermeneutics stresses empathic understanding from the inside it sees the text or object as out there ready to be investigated Post-modern hermeneutics says there is no such a thing as an objective or true meaning of a text. Facts are what a cultural, conversational community agrees they are (Madison, 1990: 191) Critical hermeneutics takes a middle position the interpreter has the important task of judging between alternative explanations Depth hermeneutics assumes that the surface meaning of the text hides, but also expresses, a deeper meaning
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Using hermeneutics
In qualitative research studies about business and management, the text is what people say and do Interviews, documents and your own field notes record the views of the actors and describe certain events, etc. This material needs to be ordered, explained and interpreted in order to make sense of the situation The ordering is done according to the researchers theoretical position and by comparing one text with another The researchers understanding of the whole has to be continually revised in view of the reinterpretation of the parts
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Critique of hermeneutics
The main advantage of using hermeneutics is that it enables a much deeper understanding of people in business settings Hermeneutics is well-grounded in philosophy and the social sciences more generally and hence is relatively easy to justify One disadvantage of hermeneutics is that it focuses the researcher almost entirely on text rather than lived experience Another potential disadvantage of hermeneutics is that it can be difficult to know when to conclude a study: when does the interpretive process stop?
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