About Phenomenology

People who have gained knowledge through direct, first-hand involvement in everyday events, rather than through assumptions and constructs from other people, research, or media. Source: Oxford Dictionary: A Dictionary of Media and Communication

Phenomenology is the study of lived experience.

The discipline of phenomenology may be defined initially as the study of structures of experience or consciousness. Literally, phenomenology is the study of “phenomena”: appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in our experience. It was developed largely by the German philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. Phenomenology studies conscious experience as experienced from the subjective or first-person point of view. This field of philosophy is then to be distinguished from, and related to, the other main fields of philosophy: ontology (the study of being or what is), epistemology (the study of knowledge), logic (the study of valid reasoning), ethics (the study of right and wrong action), etc.

Source: Stanford University

There are three main types of Phenomenology:

1. Realist Phenomenology (or Realistic Phenomenology): Husserl's early formulation, based on the first edition of his "Logical Investigations", which had as its goal the analysis of the intentional structures of mental acts as they are directed at both real and ideal objects. This was the preferred version of the Munich Group at the University of Munich in the early 20th Century, led by Johanes Daubert (1877 - 1947) and Adolf Reinach (1883 -1917), as well as Alexander Pfänder (1871 - 1941), Max Scheler (1874 - 1928), Roman Ingarden (1893 - 1970), Nicolai Hartmann (1882 - 1950) and Hans Köchler (1948 - ).

2. Transcendental Phenomenology (or Constitutive Phenomenology): Husserl's later formulation, following from his 1913 "Ideas", which takes the intuitive experience of phenomena as its starting point, and tries to extract from it the generalized essential features of experiences and the essence of what we experience, setting aside questions of any relation to the natural world around us. Transcendental Phenomenologists include Oskar Becker (1889 - 1964), Aron Gurwitsch (1901 - 1973) and Alfred Schutz (1899 - 1959).

3. Existential Phenomenology: Heidegger's expanded formulation, as expounded in his "Being and Time" of 1927, which takes as read that the observer cannot separate himself from the world (and so cannot have the detached viewpoint Husserl insisted on). It is therefore a combination of the phenomenological method with the importance of understanding man in his existential world. Existential Phenomenologists include Jean-Paul Sartre, Hannah Arendt (1906 - 1975), Emmanuel Levinas (1906 - 1995), Gabriel Marcel (1889 - 1973), Paul Ricoeur (1913 - 2005) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908 - 1961)

Source: Phenomenology Basics

Incorporating phenomenological methods into equity-informed research and evaluation is crucial for addressing systemic disparities and designing solutions that achieve fairness, justice, and inclusivity for all. Utilizing lived experience validates perspectives, challenges, and strengths of at-risk, vulnerable, and historically marginalized groups. Including it in research and evaluation facilitates identifying and understanding the unique barriers these groups face, the supports or services they find useful, and the impact of policies and interventions. The insights gained from this approach lead to meaningful solutions and drive transformative change within systems.