2021.05 61-4 Enquiry of "Lived Experience" and "Being" in Narrative Study: Taking Path through Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Emotional Geography

The purpose of this study is to enquire "lived experience" and "being" from the nature of time and space. The authors argued that meaning construction needs to take terms methodologically by hermeneutic phenomenology and emotional geography. Four discussion points are showed as follows and used to articulate the utility of narrative analysis.Firstly, this study defines the enquiry itself as enquiring "being" in its subjectivity or intersubjectivity. Through reviewing the "narrative turn" in the history of qualitative research, narrative is stated as the representation of one's self and therefore studying one's life story is to explore the meaning construction of lived experience, which is through saying and said, and has its subject from and object for. Ontologically, it is argued that meaning in narrative has its own time and space and therefore researchers need to find the route of how meaning could be developing.
 

  The second part of this study is to further debate the nature of "lived experience" and "being" as topographical and geographical. Meaning develops with its directions between self and other; therefore, a researcher's ambition to "reflect" outside world or "reflexively" clarifies inner world of oneself and decides the attitude of studying meaning construction of lived experience. This part defines and reviews the ontological concern of "being" and its relation of space and time. From current finding of emotional geography in Europe, narrative could therefore be widen its epistemological and methodological perspective for exploring "being" and "lived experience".
 

  In the third part of this study, according to our ontological arguments epistemological perspectives have been elaborated for understanding meaning construction of "being" and "lived experience". The dimensions of time and space are particularly relevant here. Through Heidegger's contribution of Dasein analysis and dwelling concepts, we defined narrative has its time linear structure in which presence is in-between the past and future, and has its  space structure of being-in-a-space, from geographer Malpas's contribution. We linked Winnicott's concept of "transitional space" and discussed the "being" as the ethics between self, other, and transitional space, and further discussed the indigenous studies conducted in Taiwan about the structural concern as well as the topographical nature of perception.
 

  The final part of the arguments focuses two methodological concerns: route and structure. The former lead to the discussion of geographical approach towards qualitative data. Here the illustration of mental landscape is offered and is argued as an analytic method. Humanistic geographical approach developed in recent decades focused on reflexive description of self-other relationship and the mental/emotional landscape, so that lived experience and being could be illustrated by where and how the meaning is constructed. Therefore the route and structure of meaning construction can then be represented.
 

  The second methodological concern take narratives to the hermeneutics and phenomenology of meaning construction, in which Husserl used "epoche" as the method of temporally disregarding its causality but the "things itself". This method could help a researcher systematically investigate both temporal and topographical nature of lived experience. From Wei-Lun Lee's six-step correction from Giorgi's five steps of analysis, the way in which "being" can be opened into the description of phenomenon. Also, Lee's methodological investigation to human perception was followed for exploring the structure of lived experience itself.
 

  This study particularly focuses on the temporal structure of narratives, and taking the final methodologica path through the circle of hermeneutics, which regards narrative as having its circle of interpretation as the process of meaning construction. A method named Critical Narrative Analysis (CNA) is discoursed here. Six steps of data analysis for qualitative data is introduced for concluding the concern for enquiring meaning structure within narratives, especially when data is with historical and temporal characteristics.
 

  By above arguments, the understanding of narratives according its ontology, epistemology and methodology is carefully linked with the use of narrative analysis in counseling and psychotherapeutic practice. And methodological concerns of narrative are concluded for answering how and why taking path through hermeneutic phenomenology and emotional geography is important in narrative enquiries.

Keywords
emotional geography, existential philosophy, hermeneutic phenomenology, narrative enquiry

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