Interpreting practice: producing practical wisdom from qualitative study of practitioner experience

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses methodological challenges in researching practice. The primary challenge discussed arises from the view that practice is inextricable from its performance, and that performance is embedded in social relations, material infrastructures and historical context. The paper argues for a philosophical hermeneutics approach that works with practitioner-informants to explicate a model of variables salient to practitioners, which, in concert, would support practical wisdom in decision-making. A further methodological challenge discussed in the paper is that of defining the object of practice. The paper argues for avoiding tight definitions in favour of discovering from the lived experience of informants a recognisable ‘family likeness’ in relation to the object of practice. The paper shows how one research team responded to the challenges by its choices of stance, lenses through which to attend to information, selection of sources, and how to discern and present emergent insights.

KEYWORDS:

• Hermeneutics
• practice
• phenomenology
• collaboration

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank all the practitioner participants in the research for their generous and reflective sharing. Thanks too to co-researchers Glen Lauder and Phillip Baker whose commitment to relational methodologies and suspicion of reduction kept us sharp. The authors thank Maria Hepi and Wayne Duncan for undertaking fieldwork and analysis, Rawiri Smith for collegial dialogue and Melissa Robson-Williams for her oversight of the overall project.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no potential conflicts of interest.

Notes

1. The context of the project was a broad research programme in New Zealand ‘to enhance the production and productivity of New Zealand’s primary sector, while maintaining and improving the quality of the country’s land and water for future generations’ (Our Land and Water, 2019). This paper draws on a part of that programme, research into collaborative capacity in relation to transforming management of land and water.

Additional information

Funding

The project was funded by the New Zealand National Science Challenge, Our Land and Water, under MBIE contract [C10X1901].

Notes on contributors

Graeme Nicholas

Graeme Nicholas is a social systems researcher and consultant. He specialises in investigating social practice and how to influence social complexity. Graeme combines backgrounds in microbiology, theology, complex social systems and critical systems thinking. Until recently he was a senior scientist with a government research institute in New Zealand, the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR). Since leaving ESR Graeme established a private research and facilitation consultancy, Ti Kouka Consulting.

Jeff Foote

Dr Jeff Foote is a Lecturer in the Department of Management, University of Otago. His research interests include systems methodology, health services research and interdisciplinary and bi-cultural project work.