essential-guide-to-qualitative-in-organizational-research

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– HERMENEUTIC UNDERSTANDING ––––– 197understanding of what Renan (cited in Bettelheim, 1983) called la science de l’humanité maybe illustrated at three levels. Psychoanalysis provides a theoretical basis for understanding boththe objective and subjective aspects of the subject of research. Habermas, for example, suggeststhat Freud ‘dealt with the occurrence of systematically deformed communication in order todefine the scope of specifically incomprehensible acts and utterances’ (1970: 349). At a secondlevel, psychoanalytic theory provides an account of the relationship between the researcherand the subject of research. The theory of transference and countertransference (see, forexample McAuley, 1989) shows how in the relationship the researcher and the subject ofresearch create a relationship that can be explored reflexively by both parties in the situation.At a third level psychoanalysis provides an account of the setting (Malcolm, 1988) in whichthe hermeneutic research act can be conducted. Habermas characterizes the analytic settingas a ‘special design of communication. The fundamental analytic rule . . . ensures a standardrelationship . . . which meets quasi-experimental conditions’ (1970: 352).Some of the ways in which the hermeneutic tradition is manifested in the psychoanalyticencounter may be seen in these ‘rules of conduct’ (cited in Malcolm, 1988: 142). These weredistilled by the psychoanalyst Winnicott (1958) from Freud’s thinking. The key points, forpresent purposes, from Winnicott’s ideas are in italics. They have been interpreted in relationto undertaking the research act not only for psychoanalytic framework but in the hermeneuticframe generally:• The analyst aims to get in touch with the process of the client, to understand the material and tocommunicate the understanding in words. There is a key issue here of interpretation and theadequacy of the interpretation to capture and develop the ability to understand thesituation. There is, however, additionally in this understanding and communication anemancipatory process whereby it investigates the communication between therapist andclient (or in our case researcher and the subject of research) as ‘an expression of anunconscious symbol-system’ (Giddens, 1982: 86).• The analyst’s method was one of objective observation: on the one hand writers in thepsychoanalytic tradition such as Bion (1970) write of the need, in the analytic encounter,to be able to suspend memory (for example of previous encounters), desire (for examplethat the subject ‘likes’ the researcher), understanding (in the sense of coming to animmediate conclusion) and intuitions that are based on a lay rather than professionalunderstanding of the situation. The development of this objectivity comes, so it isclaimed, after years of training and self-insight.On the other hand there are those who would claim that, given the nature of thehermeneutic cycle the researcher (whether in human or natural science (Ginev, 1999))cannot escape from ‘socialized pre-understandings . . . there is no observation free fromthe observer’s interpretation based on the presuppositions that derive from their initiationinto the ‘know how’ of a particular socio-historical culture’ (Johnson and Duberley,2000: 66). Contrary to this view, Habermas suggests that the analyst’s (researcher’s)preunderstanding ‘is directed at a small sampling of possible meanings’ (1970: 352) – inother words is highly focused and therefore amenable to tight control.• The analyst keeps out moral judgement, though he/she should not appear unaware of some universalshock. What this refers to is that the researcher is not there to make moral judgementsabout the subjects’ values or behaviours. In the case of a morally repugnant encounterthe hermeneutic task is to understand what is causing the repugnance in the researcher’sown inner life.