A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

60
We set aside our prejudgements, biases, and preconceived ideas about things. We
„invalidate‟, „inhibit‟, and „disqualify‟ all commitments with reference to previous
knowledge and experience (Moustakas, 1994:85).
There seemed to be a contradiction between the process of bracketing and maintaining a
political commitment to carrying out research as part of the emancipation of disabled people.
I was also unconvinced that the phenomenological practice of considering each experience
„in its singularity, in and for itself‟ (Moustakas, 1994:34) would offer the kind of insight I
was after.
The phenomenon is perceived and described in its totality, in a fresh and open way.
A complete description is given of its essential constituents, variations of
perceptions, thoughts, feelings, sounds, colours and shapes‟ (Moustakas, 1994:34).
This is to say that I felt that emphasis upon the minutiae of individual experience was likely
to prohibit an effective critical contextualisation of that experience as part of a social
experience. This phenomenological approach to developing knowledge clearly has different
aims from Harvey‟s critical social research, which involves
the penetration of outward appearances through the methodological process of
abstraction from the general category to the concrete historically specific which is
then related to the whole (totality). Comprehension of even the most apparently
simple form requires a grasp of structure (made accessible through abstraction from
the general category), and history (Harvey, 1990:197).
It is for these reasons that I rejected the qualitative methodological approaches identified
above as frameworks within which to organise my own research. There are two points,
though, that I wish to make in relation to these before I move on. The first is that I am aware
that my reasons for deciding against each were made on the basis of only fairly superficial
understanding and after hunting through a necessarily limited number of research methods
textbooks. But decisions throughout life have to be made on the basis of partial knowledge.
The second point is that the fact that I have rejected these approaches as overarching
frameworks does not mean that I do not intend to draw upon perspectives generated within
each: for example, in making use of Schutz‟s ideas of imposed and intrinsic relevances, I
draw upon phenomenological insight.