SMC1 Psychology of Everyday Life 19/09/2023
Brinkmann (2012) The Epistemology of Working with Everyday Life Materials
‘How can we be alive and not wonder about the stories we use to knit together this place we call the world?
Without stories, our universe is merely rocks and clouds and lava and blackness’ (Coupland, Generation A, 2009, p.1)
Brinkmann introduces the idea of qualitative everyday research taking some situation (event, episode, object) as the point of
departure for analyses of social life; exposing how epistemology shall have a different take from the tradition of positivist
philosophies and methodologies. Knowing is not only part of a world representation but an activity that is helped and
comprehended through certain practices (commonly known as sciences). For knowledge to be desacralised, it has been
stressed during the last decades that it should be situated into a certain relative, discursive, local, intersubjective, cultural
situation, etc. to be better understood in its context.
It is crucial to understand what characterises the acting human beings in order to comprehend what knowing is.
Philosophical anthropology and its discussions are necessary for qualitative inquiry and vice versa. Brinkmann advocates for
a pragmatic pluralism when thinking ontologically about the social world, reasoning that different, past traditions
(phenomenologists, symbolic interactionists, and Actor-Network-Theorists) have something interesting to offer in the social
context. The ontological triangle proposed includes experience, discourse and objects; all of them necessary to construct the
social.
Phenomenological aspect Discursive aspect
(making the obvious obvious strategy) (making the hidden obvious strategy)
Object aspect
(making the obvious dubious strategy)
Fg.1. Brinkmann's 'Ontological Triangle'.
To connect the several legs in the triangle some methodological developments in qualitative inquiry have been made, one
example is the tradition of Cultural Studies ‘as a set of contested interpretive, representational practices’ (Denzin, 2003) or
Adele Clarke’s development of situational analysis 'exploring beyond the interpretive phenomenologies, narrative analysis,
etc. seeking the ‘voice’ and its representation.' Experiences are not passive happenings, but aspects of human beings'
everyday doings and engagements with the world and each other. To develop a comprehensive epistemology of everyday life
or when inquiring; Brinkmann places knowing as a matter of extreme importance that we do in our living experience (being
alive means doing inquiry). This is exemplified in Dewey's pragmatism as a philosophical anthropology of the human
knower and Heidegger’s shift to ontological hermeneutics.
Pragmatism exposes that knowing is a human activity of coping with the world. Knowing is related to action – participation
in social practices – as the relationship that exists between what we do and what subsequently happens is crucial in
understanding social phenomena.
Hermeneutics, originally a methodology for interpreting texts, evolved into a broader framework encompassing the
interpretation of human life itself. Heidegger played a pivotal role in this transformation by introducing ontological
hermeneutics, which prioritised the question of the mode of being of the entity that understands (Richardson, Fowers, &
Guignon, 1999, p. 207).
Heidegger named the entity that understands “Dasein,” distinguishing it from other entities in the universe, known as
“physical entities”. The basic structure of Dasein consists of Affectedness, Understanding and Articulation (Dreyfus, 1991).
Essentially, humans are creatures that are affected by what happens, can understand their worlds, and communicate with
SMC1 Psychology of Everyday Life 19/09/2023
others. Understanding in this case is to be thought as interpretation, as hermeneutics posits that humans are self-interpreting
animals (Taylor, 1985), who make sense of the world through storylines that generate meanings.
In the context of social processes, understanding operates in two directions: toward the social, which includes the historical
and cultural dimensions, and toward the person embedded within the social and cultural milieu. For understanding to
happen, a breakdown occurs/needs to occur to disrupt everyday practices, and make these practices appear as objective
realities seemingly detached from human activities. Qualitative researchers may intentionally induce such breakdowns when
they do not naturally occur. These researchers employ three general strategies (see Figure 1) for such breakdowns: making
the obvious obvious, making the hidden obvious, and making the obvious dubious.
After creating a breakdown, the resolution or the use of the breakdown to gain insights becomes crucial to prevent chaos or
anomie. This knowledge-producing activity following a breakdown is best understood as abduction, which differs from
traditional models of reasoning in research processes, such as induction and deduction.
The formalised process involves:
(1) Observing X
(2) X is unexpected and breaks with our normal understanding
(3) but if Y is the case, then X makes sense
(4) we are allowed to claim Y, at least provisionally (at least until we arrive at a better interpretation).
Questions
1. Can we delve deeper into the concept of aspects of the world being 'taken' in relation to our life projects and social
practices?
2. If we return to the fundamental structure of Dasein, characterised by affectedness, understanding, and articulation
(Dreyfus, 1991), can we establish a connection between:
(1) Affectedness and the occurrence of a breakdown,
(2) Understanding and the processes of making the obvious obvious, revealing the hidden, and questioning the
obvious, and finally,
(3) Articulation and the resolution of breakdowns through abduction?
3. In the context of the abduction process, how can the researcher ensure the validity of Y?
