Presenting phenomenology: faithfully recreating the lived experiences of Surfer Girls

Abstract

Phenomenology offers an appropriate philosophical orientation to investigate people's lived experiences. It is an approach that is now widely acknowledged and applied in the social sciences. Despite its increasing adaptation in diverse contexts, the use of phenomenology in leisure studies remains limited and presents many conceptual, theoretical and applied challenges to researchers. A significant challenge is presenting research findings in ways that faithfully present people's experiences. This paper provides reflexive insights into Laura's (the lead author's) attempts as a current Ph.D. candidate to embrace Heideggerian phenomenology to investigate the experiences of being a surfer. The paper is derived from Laura's thesis process, where she took part in 37 unstructured conversations with women surfers (‘Surfer Girls’), and incorporated her own experiences as a woman surfer into the study. In her thesis, Laura presents her findings in the form of ‘postcards’ to promote women surfer's individuality, and to make their words come to life. Text, visual and other aids are incorporated in ways that enrich the written word, and that set a ‘surfing scene’ and create a surfing life-world for the reader. This paper examines and explains the importance of integrating phenomenological method and analysis to give faithful voice to people's lived experiences, and suggests tools for presenting phenomenological findings. Finally, this paper justifies and promotes the use of phenomenology as an under-utilized means of deepening our understandings of people's leisure experiences.

Keywords:

• methodology
• Heideggerian phenomenology
• life-world
• doctoral research
• women's surfing

Notes on contributors

Laura is an Lecturer at the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Southern Cross University. She is also in her final year of her Ph.D., which explores the phenomenon of women's surfing from a phenomenological perspective. Her Honours thesis focused on experiences of women surf tourists. Laura's main areas of research include gender and leisure, and specifically, women's surfing. Her methodological directions follow the qualitative, interpretive pathway with a particular interest in phenomenological methods.

Erica Wilson is Senior Lecturer in the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Southern Cross University, where she is also Deputy Head of School. Her Ph.D. thesis (Griffith University) was an interpretive, qualitative exploration into the constraints faced by Australian solo women travellers. Erica is currently the Book Reviews Editor of the Annals of Leisure Research. Her scholarly interests include sustainable tourism, slow tourism/slow food, gender and tourism and the use of critical/qualitative approaches in tourism.

John M. Jenkins is Professor of Tourism and Chair of Academic Board at Southern Cross University. He has a strong commitment to supporting leisure studies and was co-editor and then managing editor of Annals of Leisure Research for more than 10 years. John's main research interests lie at the intersects of leisure and tourism studies and the disciplines of geography and public policy.

Kay works in the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Southern Cross University. She has published in areas including management competencies in tourism education, tourism business challenges and risk management in outdoor adventure. Her research interest is tourism in marine environments. She has co-edited a text on scuba diving tourism as well as written the School's first marine-based tourism unit. Kay also works with postgraduate students on their doctoral programmes.

Paul is Lecturer and Director of Academic Studies at The Hotel School Sydney (a partnership between Southern Cross University and Mulpha Australia Hotel Portfolio). Paul has co-authored two Australian ‘hospitality’ industry texts: Club Management, and Managing Convention Businesses. His research interests include curriculum design, the use and role of IT in the classroom, the role of feedback in student assessments and the application of management history within business courses. Paul is currently on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education.