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PurposeThis current paper attempts to bring more light to the current debate of understanding phenomenological research methods, in order to clarify the interpretive phenomenological inquiry with Heidegger's philosophy of phenomenology.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uniquely presents the three distinctions of Heideggerian thoughts in conducting interpretive phenomenological research: (1) realizing the problem of identity; (2) recognizing the inadequacy of ontology; and (3) interpreting the subject matter through historical critiques.FindingsThe paper also discusses the basis of phenomenological research issues of a priori knowledge, data analysis process and qualitative research issues of validity, reliability, and creditability. In the conclusion and recommendation, this paper suggests six key points to implement a proper research strategy to employ Heideggerian phenomenological inquiry in social science and policymaking research where investigators are dealing with the multiplicity of existing and alternative worldviews.Originality/valueThe paper idea is fresh and adds new knowledge to the field.

In this book, Scott D. Churchill introduces readers to existential phenomenological research, an approach that explores a comprehensive, embodied knowledge of subjective human life that reflects a person's values, goals, ideals, intents, emotions, and relationships. This approach helps researchers understand people’s and needs by identifying and resolving theoretical and ideological misconceptions. In this book, Churchill defines important aspects of EPR as: a method based on empirical data for evaluating the mental life of individuals. In this case, the researchers are concerned with the evidence and access to it, which is based on first-person narratives of experience and the researchers' reflections on those experiences, as well as encouraging the researchers' sensory sensitivity and a sense of empathy, curiosity, and excitement in of human experience.

Phenomenology was introduced to the field of nursing in late ‘70s in the US and Scandinavia. Since then, phenomenology has developed as a commonly used approach within nursing research. However, during the past two to three decades, phenomenological nursing research has come under attack from scholars outside the field of nursing who question the credibility and usefulness of phenomenological nursing research. The aim of this discussion paper is twofold: 1) to illuminate why phenomenology was introduced by nurse scholars to develop theory and as a framework for empirical research in the US and Scandinavia; and 2) to discuss the legitimacy of applying a phenomenological approach in nursing research and practice today. The rationale behind advocating the integration of a phenomenological approach into nursing practice was to defend, apprehend and articulate the essence of caregiving in theory building within nursing. We claim these arguments are maybe even more important today. Using three examples of empirical phenomenological studies, we illustrate how these studies provide theoretically informed insights into existential aspects of care that guide caring practice and accordingly humanise practice. We argue that phenomenology provides the nursing profession with a humanly sensitive approach that challenges the current tendency within healthcare to emphasise an evidence-based, standardised approach to patient care that inclines to neglect each patient’s uniqueness. Nursing profession may lose its very raison d'être, i.e. to deliver humanly sensitive care, if nursing research ceases to address existential aspects of being a human. Thus, it is evident that phenomenological nursing studies have legitimacy and are important for developing theoretically informed insights that promote the discipline of nursing. Consequently, the value of phenomenological nursing research should be assessed based on the findings it provides that promote such knowledge. Hence, credibility and usefulness of phenomenological nursing research must be determined by the discipline itself.

To conduct qualitative social research requires not only a declarative knowledge of the research methods and methodology, but also a set of honed practical, applied skills. For beginning researchers, particularly those undertaking phenomenological research, the skills of bracketing, the phenomenological reductions and having an awareness of one’s positionality or relationship to their chosen research methods, participants and contexts is of significant importance. More generally, these skills are also required in other qualitative research disciplines under the guise of reflexivity or critical reflective practice. Regardless, these are notoriously slippery and require more than prior reading to translate from theory and philosophy into practice. There is literature which also identifies and highlights the disparity between theory, skill development and practice; however, these practicalities of how one can bracket or bridle and undertake reductions require further elaboration and guidance for how researchers can develop these applied skills of research. In this article, I propose and demonstrate that the therapeutic tradition of mindfulness as specifically practised in dialectical behaviour therapy can be used to de-mystify the practices of reflexivity and work specifically within the tradition of phenomenological reduction and bracketing. I also assert that this innovation can provide a practical tool to craft qualitative and phenomenological research and make achievable the original philosophical ideas which underpin phenomenological research. I begin by focusing on the theory of bracketing and reduction from the philosophic tradition of phenomenology as a framework for research methodology and methods, and then introduce the practical skill of mindfulness as prescribed in dialectical behaviour therapy as an innovation which can assist the researcher in developing these skills. I finish by illustrating the usefulness of mindfulness in undertaking phenomenological research drawing on examples from a current research project.

Environmental philosophy, needless to say, is going through a transition in the zenith of the Anthropocene. It is high time to carry out engaged philosophy to bring in philosophical understandings in approaching real-world environmental issues for obtaining some novel insights into the human–environment relationship. For the same, I argue, we need to explore some new methodologies that would be capable of offering the opportunity to do engaged philosophy instead of borrowing methodologies from the social sciences. Here, I examine Phenomenological Research Methodology (PRM) for the same. I elaborate on the process of conducting a field study with this methodology. For analyzing narratives, I choose the interpretive stream over the descriptive one. By drawing extensively from the philosophy of phenomenology, I propose a four-step narrative analysis process that can unveil a narrator’s transcendent mode of being. Finally, I share my research experiences while employing PRM in the field and demonstrate how PRM has the potential to sidestep some of the widely held concerns associated with field studies. Along with, I highlight critical reflection of my experiences while employing this methodology, particularly, in the context of India.

In this age of rising consumerism, it is evident that we need to move toward a more environmentally sustainable and socially just form of consumption patterns by surpassing the impasse currently faced by various sustainable consumption policies. Without any further delay, we need to embrace an apt methodological orientation to gain a better socioculturally situated conceptual understanding of consumers and a means to obtain empirical insights into drivers of socioenvironmentally impactful consumption patterns to be able to proceed toward efficacious sustainable consumption policies. This article proposes a phenomenological research methodology–based conceptual framing and a step-by-step methodological approach based on that framing to gain an in-depth understanding of how consumers being socioculturally situated identity projects–driven subjects embed consumer goods as integral parts of their life narratives and how that in turn acts as the drivers of their consumption. The elaborated steps of interpreting collected consumer narratives are presented with examples from an empirical research conducted in a few Indian cities. Critical reflections on diverse issues that may arise while employing this methodology in similar contexts like India are then discussed. The conclusion highlights how this understanding of consumer could make a novel contribution to sustainable consumption literature.

I show some problems with recent discussions within qualitative research that centre around the “authenticity” of phenomenological research methods. I argue that attempts to restrict the scope of the term “phenomenology” via reference to the phenomenological philosophy of Husserl are misguided, because the meaning of the term “phenomenology” is only broadly restricted by etymology. My argument has two prongs: first, via a discussion of Husserl, I show that the canonical phenomenological tradition gives rise to many traits of contemporary qualitative phenomenological theory that are purportedly insufficiently genuine (such as characterisations of phenomenology as “what-its-likeness” and presuppositionless description). Second, I argue that it is not adherence to the theories and methods of prior practitioners such as Husserl that justifies the moniker “phenomenology” anyway. Thus, I show that the extent to which qualitative researchers ought to engage with the theory of philosophical phenomenology or adhere to a particular edict of Husserlian methodology ought to be determined by the fit between subject matter and methodology and conclude that qualitative research methods still qualify as phenomenological if they develop their own set of theoretical terms, traditions, and methods instead of importing them from philosophical phenomenology.

Aim The aim of this paper was to discuss how to understand and undertake thematic analysis based on descriptive phenomenology. Methodological principles to guide the process of analysis are offered grounded on phenomenological philosophy. This is further discussed in relation to how scientific rigour and validity can be achieved. Design This is a discursive article on thematic analysis based on descriptive phenomenology. Results This paper takes thematic analysis based on a descriptive phenomenological tradition forward and provides a useful description on how to undertake the analysis. Ontological and epistemological foundations of descriptive phenomenology are outlined. Methodological principles are explained to guide the process of analysis, as well as help to understand validity and rigour. Researchers and students in nursing and midwifery conducting qualitative research need comprehensible and valid methods to analyse the meaning of lived experiences and organize data in meaningful ways.

In Husserl’s approach to phenomenology, now labelled descriptive phenomenology, experiences are described and researcher perceptions are set aside or ‘bracketed’ in order to enter into the life world of the research participant without any presuppositions.1 Experience is recognised to involve perception, thought, memory, imagination and emotion, each involving ‘intentionality’, as the individual focuses their gaze on a specific ‘thing’ or event.1 Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), a student of Husserl, rejected the theory of knowledge or ‘epistemology’ that influenced Husserl’s work, and instead adopted ‘ontology’, the science of being. The researcher uses a broad range of data collection methods that are appropriate to participants and the phenomena of interest. Evidence suggests that caregiving demands can have a significant impact on parents’ physical, emotional and social well-being.4 While both qualitative and quantitative research designs can be useful to explore the quality of life for parents living with a child with a life-limiting conditions, a phenomenological approach offers a way to begin to understand the range of factors that can effect parents, from their perspective and experience, revealing meanings that can be ‘hidden’, rather than making inferences. van Manen’s approach was chosen because the associated methods do not ‘break down’ the experience being studied into disconnected parts, but provides rich narrative descriptions and interpretations that describe what it means to be a person in their particular life-world. [...]van Manen’s approach was chosen because it offers a flexibility to data collection, where there is more of an emphasis on the facilitation of participants to share their views in a non-coercive way and the production of meaning between the researcher and researched compared to other phenomenological approaches (table 2).