Doing Heideggerian hermeneutic research: A discussion paper

BackgroundMuch has been published related to the epistemology of Heideggerian hermeneutic research. We seek to reveal insights from our experience of enacting such research.ObjectiveTo articulate the lived experience of ‘doing’ Heideggerian hermeneutic research.DesignThe authors of this paper shared their experiences with the primary author towards articulating the process of ‘doing’ such research.ParticipantsThe authors all have long experience with Heideggerian hermeneutic research and meet regularly at the Institute for Interpretive Phenomenology. They supervise student's research and are mindful of the process of coming to understand how to work in a phenomenological/hermeneutic manner.MethodsFirst the section on philosophical underpinnings was written by the primary author and then shared with all authors. There was published data related to the experience of three of the participants already available. This provided a spring board to further conversations when the primary author visited America, able to engage in daily conversations with three of the co-authors. In the spirit of phenomenology this paper represents a process of reading, talking, writing, talking, reading, re-writing, re-talking and so forth.ResultsThe process of doing hermeneutic phenomenology is represented as a journey of ‘thinking’ in which researchers are caught up in a cycle of reading-writing-dialogue- which spirals onwards. Through such disciplined and committed engagement insights ‘come’. The researcher is always open to questions, and to following a felt-sense of what needs to happen next. However, it is not a process of ‘do whatever you like’ but rather a very attentive attunement to ‘thinking’ and listening to how the texts speak.ConclusionThis paper argues that alongside a disciplined understanding of the methodology, both researcher and reader need to share a commitment to ‘thinking’ which is willing to question, and open to trusting the resonance of understanding that ‘comes’ without expecting answers that are declared ‘truth’ for all time.