The lifeworld – enriching qualitative evidence

ABSTRACT

The focus of research of phenomenological psychology is experience that is made up of the object to which consciousness refers, plus a mode of consciousness (e.g., perception, judgement, remembering). But the objects of experience are not “free floating.” Any experience is inevitably interwoven with the rest of the individual’s lifeworld. In this article, I argue that there are necessary aspects, or fractions, of any lifeworld whatsoever: selfhood, sociality, embodiment, temporality, spatiality, project, discourse, and moodedness. Since these are always implicated in the experience, it is certainly no risk to the integrity of the collection or analysis of qualitative data — in fact it enriches the description of the experience — to actively investigate these fractions, whatever the precise research topic might be. This is true of all qualitative research that aims to speak in first-person terms of the individual’s involvement in their lived environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Epochē
• experience
• interviewing
• lifeworld
• phenomenological psychology
• qualitative data analysis

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter D. Ashworth

Peter Ashworth is emeritus professor at Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom. His current work is on the implications for phenomenological psychology of the contemporary criticisms of phenomenology by M. Henry and by Q. Meillassoux. Dr. Ashworth is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society.