2.1.5 Phenomenology
2.1.5. Phenomenology
Phenomenology is both philosophy and methodology (Creely et al., 2020) for this proposed research. Phenomenological research aims to reveal and describe lived experiences in order to gain understanding of the meaning of phenomena (Cilesiz, 2011), as being the locus and topic of study. Thus, researchers focus on “richly describing the experiential essence of human experiences” (Tracy, 2020, p. 65). Two central concepts in phenomenology are the notions of lifeworlds and intentionality. Lifeworlds are the immediate experiences of what already exists, emerging from the world in its natural and emerging state (Tracy, 2020). The lifeworld is where the phenomena are experienced and lived (Vagle, 2018). Intentionality is the meaning and “connections that emerge in relations, contexts, and across time” (Valentine et al., 2018, p. 463). This use of the word intentionality is not to be confused with the intent, purpose, aim, or plan to do something. For phenomenology, intentionality describes “the way humans are connected meaningfully with the world” (Vagle, 2018, p. 126). Phenomenological researchers are aware of how “words, language, concepts, and theories distort, mediate, and shape raw experience” (Tracy, 2020, p. 65). Criticality and self-reflection are imperative in phenomenological research (Tracy, 2020).
In order to fully understand the post-intentional phenomenological (P-IP) paradigm (Clifden & Vagle, 2020; Vagle & Hofsess, 2016) within which this proposed research is framed, I will need to first explore the differences between the perspective of transcendental phenomenology and the hermeneutic, existential phenomenological research paradigms, since it is often one of these two paradigms that are applied to phenomenological research. I will then uncover this third type of phenomenological paradigm and explain why post-intentional phenomenology (Vagle, 2018; Valentine et al., 2018) provides the best fit for this proposed research.
Transcendental Phenomenology
Transcendental, or descriptive phenomenology, is inspired by Husserl’s philosophy of consciousness (Tracy, 2020; Valentine, 2018). How the research participant knows, or is consciously aware of some object, real or imagined, thus a ‘consciousness of something’ is foundational for describing the “essence of a phenomenon or experience” (Valentine et al., 2018, p. 464). While conducting the research and data analysis, the researcher must set aside their biases or habits of seeing, through a process of bracketing or transcending previously conceived theory, experiences, and understandings. This removes the researcher’s influence from the interpretation of the phenomenon (Valentine et al., 2018; Tracy, 2020). Since meaning is derived from the “intentional relation between subject and object” the research studies the “of-ness” of the phenomenon (Vagle, 2018, p. 39). The focus is on accurate and rich descriptions of the phenomenon as it is understood or known by the research participants. For this proposed research, the phenomenon under scrutiny is the MDL within OEPr. This research will shift away from transcendental phenomenology since I will not ‘bracket’ or suspend my “habits of seeing” (Tracy, 2020, p. 65). It is not just the knowing or understanding of the phenomenon of OEPr, as seen through a teacher educator’s experiences with MDL that interest me. It is the phenomenon of OEPr and how MDL shapes micro-practices in becoming open educational practitioners that is the focus of this proposed research.
Interpretive Phenomenology
Interpretive or hermeneutic phenomenology focuses on embodiment and being in the lifeworlds and intentions relating to a phenomenon, which is grounded in the philosophies of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Gadamer (Valentine et al., 2018). This shift in phenomenology from knowing to being resulted from Heidegger’s ontological interest in how people give subjective meaning to phenomena. Interpretive phenomenology is thus not just concerned with consciousness, but in how lifeworlds constitute intelligible structures (Vagle, 2018) and how these meanings are revealed through language and discourse, thus emphasizing the intentionalities within people’s stories as a form of sense-making (Tracy, 2020). Vagle applies the preposition ‘in’ to describe the ‘in-ness’ of intentionality whereby the human subject is ‘in’ “intersubjective, contextual relationships” (Vagle, 2018, p. 42). Bracketing is replaced by reflective and reflexive practices that ‘bridle’ or restrain the researcher’s positionality and perspectives on the phenomenon (Valentine et al., 2018). In this way, the researcher is not removed from the research, but openly acknowledges their assumptions and positionality while sharing their reflexive understandings of the phenomenon (Valentine et al., 2018). While a fuller presentation of interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) as outlined by Smith (2004) is beyond the purposes of this proposed research, it is important to reveal three characteristic features of IPA – idiography, inductivity, and interrogation – that influence post-phenomenological research. IPA follows an idiographic research sequence, collecting one case or participant’s story at a time, bringing it to a degree of closure, before moving on to subsequent cases or to the cross-case analysis of themes for convergence or divergence (Smith, 2004). Since my intention is to conduct interviews and storying events simultaneously and interwoven in time and space, this excludes IPA as a research method. Researchers following an IPA strategy will inductively analyze data while being open to unanticipated and emergent themes or topics while continuing to interrogate and illuminate extant literature (Smith, 2004). While these characteristics will be evident in the proposed research, it is my plan to bring a fluidity to the coding and analysis that may inductively reveal themes and categories while exploring for patterns within the whole-part-whole descriptions of the phenomena. A fulsome review of the literature in the field will be incorporated when fully crafting the final text, in the post-analysis phase of this research project.
Post-intentional phenomenology
Post-intentional phenomenology (P-IP) shifts the focus from being to becoming – from “identifying invariant structures … toward exploring the various ways that phenomena are socially produced in context” (Valentine et al., 2018, p.466). Vagle (2018) applies the preposition ‘through’ to describe how the lifeworlds and intentionality found in phenomena are permeable, malleable, non-linear and shift over time. Intentionalities and lifeworld experiences are reciprocally circulated and produced by the human participants as well as the social systems, habits and practices found ‘through’ the phenomena (Vagle, 2018). Theoretically, P-IP “takes place along the hyphen, the jagged edges of phenomenology and post-structuralist ideas, where stories are in flux, where we enter into middles instead of beginnings or ends” (Vagle, 2015, p. 597).
This frames my understanding that knowledge is fluid, always becoming, since knowing is “changed to the extent that reality also moves and changes” (Horton & Freire, 1990, p. 101). P-IP researchers recognize that phenomena are not rigid, but are temporal and partial, the focus is on examining the essential features of the phenomenon “at a given point in time, for a given group of participants, contexts, or cultures” (Valentine et al., 2020, p. 466). Thus, post-intentional phenomenologists take into account the “multi-dimensionality, multi-stability, and the multiple ‘voices’ of things” (Ihde, 2003, p. 25) and variant ways participants’ lifeworlds emerge. P-IP is theoretically linked to connectivism (Siemens, 2018) in that intentionality is a “commitment to the idea of connection – and that the meaningfulness of living and the lifeworld resides in the connectivity among humans, things, ideas, concepts, conflicts, etc., not in humans or in things or in ideas alone” (Vagle, 2018, p. 128).
Research within a P-IP paradigm shifts away from a notion of ‘giveness’ or that there is a “brute reality out there – present and fixed – with an essence that can be both immediately perceived … and brought to light and expressed in language” (St. Pierre, 2013, p. 651). It shifts toward Derrida’s conception of différence (1972/ 1981 as cited in St. Pierre, 2013) whereby phenomena are transcendental illusions, contaminated by past, present, and future. It is shaped by Foucault’s focus, as outlined by St. Pierre (2013) on the ‘materiality of linguistic and discursive practice” (p. 652) where language and reality exist together. It follows an experimental Deleuzian ontology (St. Pierre, 2013) with lines of flight as a central concept, while rejecting binary logic in favor of a logic of connection, ‘and’, and ‘becoming’ (St. Pierre, 2013; Vagle, 2018). It is through the Deleuzian conceptions of assemblage and rhizomatics that the notion of ‘becoming’ a digitally literate, open educational practitioner as a teacher educator can be revealed as “entangled, connected, indefinite, impersonal, shifting into different multiplicities” (St. Pierre, 2013, p. 653). Rocha (2015) builds on this conception of assemblage by describing the shifting focus in phenomenology, moving from a focus on objects to a focus on being, then to a focus on giveness, while adding his own reduction focusing on offerings.
In P-IP researchers must “examine practices rather than going deep, looking for origins and hidden meanings that exist outside of being” (St. Pierre, 2013, p. 649). It is through intentionality, or the “directional shape of experiences” (Ihde, 2012, p. 24), as evident through productions and provocations created with and without technologies, that the temporal, partial, and contextual features of highly ambiguous, emergent, and variant phenomena (Valentine et al., 2018) are revealed. P-IP research relies on gathering rich data from a variety of sources and from lived-experiences “meant to stand as testimony, bearing witness” (hooks, 1994, p. 11). In this research, proxies for teacher educators’ OEPr are revealed in writing, interviews, observations, media productions, discourses, and histories. Rocha (2015) refers to these as “offerings” (p. 6). In this way, the phenomena of becoming an open educational practitioner in Canadian FoE can be understood as a “relation of possible meanings being shaped, produced, and provoked” (Valentine et al., 2018, p. 467) and as a “movement against and beyond boundaries” (hooks, 1994, p. 12).
For P-IP researchers, reflexivity requires a “dogged questioning of one’s own knowledge as opposed to a suspension of this knowledge” (Vagle, 2018, p. 82). This involves continual attention to moments where connection/disconnection are evident, where normality is assumed, where bottom lines are discovered, and where shock or insights emerge (Valentine, 2018). Research data are iteratively analyzed through wholistic, selective and detailed readings (van Manen, 2014) that can shape and crystallize the facets found within whole, parts, meanings, particularities, and unique assemblages. It is in these crystallizing moments that P-IP research reflexivity is open to the potentialities of turning to wonder (Rocha, 2015; Vagle, 2018). Researchers are open to moments when the lived experiences being researched create feelings of awe, perplexity, and surprise. In this way, the research and the writing of phenomenological research benefits from multi-modal expressions of visual, auditory, language, images, art, video, or music (Vagle, 2018; van Manen, 2014).
Thus, P-IP is the best fit for this proposed research since I posit that the MDL of teacher educators fluent in OEPr will be gathered in a fluid, liminal, boundary crossing, and dynamic praxis that is continually shifting toward an ideal of becoming open, becoming literate, becoming teacher-educator.
NEXT SECTION – Chapter 2. Conceptual Frameworks
