Approaching the historical other through hermeneutics

Abstract

The article discusses the concept of historical other. It draws on a case study of a work in progress – research of the idea of social work derived from the texts of the prominent social worker Jane Addams (1860−1935). The timeline of Addams’ life and work coincides with the establishment of professional social work, in which Addams was one of the central figures and a pioneer activist in the USA. The design of the study has been based on the principles of historical research. Studying history and a person who lived in a different time and culture has brought up a question: how is it possible to understand this kind of otherness? Methodologically, a hermeneutic framework has been essential to the study and has led me to dialogic relationship with Addams’ original texts. The aims of the article are to answer how historical otherness can and should become understandable and why it is important to have this kind of research in social work. I will outline how I have approached and understood historical otherness as a researcher and how the process of understanding has developed during the research project. At the end I will reflect on what this kind of approach can offer me and my understanding of the discipline of social work.

Keywords:

• historical other
• hermeneutics
• Jane Addams
• methodology
• otherness

Acknowledgements

This article has developed from the paper I wrote when I participated in the summer school of the Nordic-Baltic Doctoral Network in Social Work in Kokkola, Finland. The summer school was held under the title Understanding the Other and took place in 2011. I would like to acknowledge my appreciation for the overall inspiring atmosphere of the summer school and thank Professors Aila-Leena Matthies and Adrienne Chambon for offering me the opportunity to work on this subject further. I would also especially like to thank the leader of our working group, Senior Assistant Satu Ranta-Tyrkkö, for encouraging me to continue to work with this text.

Notes

1. There are 514 published documents listed from Jane Addams (see Elshtain 2002b).

2. In addition to Addams’ texts there are many texts written by her contemporaries. These texts help to connect Addams to her own time and the processes in society during the period in which she lived and worked. Discussing all these texts in detail is beyond the scope of this study, so I concentrate on Addams’ texts.

3. The Writing Index categorizes documents by the title, the source, and the subject of the text (Bryan, Slote, and de Angury 1996, 110).

4. I am writing my dissertation in my native tongue, which is not English.