I have been reading, writing, and thinking about standards of qualitative research lately. Thinking about research involves thinking about knowledge which involves thinking about problems and possibilities of interpretation and understanding. According to the philosophical hermeneutics developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer (1960/1989; 1966/1977), there is a universality to the hermeneutic problem. It does not belong to the domain of research practices (solely). It is thus not a methodological problem; it is a life problem that includes but also goes beyond the question of what to do or not to do.
In many ways, hermeneutics has its origins in breaches of intersubjectivity, that is; situations where meanings are not completely or immediately understandable so that there is need for an interpretive effort. At the same time; interpretive efforts have a certain intersubjective or dialogic character. James Risser (1997) has written a nice little book about philosophical hermeneutics that comments upon and develop themes such as the “importance of the other” and “the eminence of the poetic text.” This book inspired me to think about dialogic and poetic dimensions of music therapy practice, where gestures, sounds, and words interpret each other, in the context of what two or more people create together:
As every sound answers questions asked and not yet asked, music therapy is under the voice of the other. Of the breath of the body, a cymbal, a symbol. Voices of pain and pleasure. Pathways of participation, rituals of change. The positive possibility of being wholly with something else. Starting all over, again, as every sound answers questions asked and not yet asked.
When the breath turns. To sound with the other and come back to oneself as to another. Pathways of participation, rituals of change. The positive possibility of being wholly with something else. Starting all over, again, as every sound answers questions asked and not yet asked.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1960/1989). Truth and Method (2nd, rev. ed.). (Transl. rev. by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall). New York. Continuum.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1966/1977). The Universality of the Hermeneutic Problem. In: Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1977). Philosophical Hermeneutics (translated and edited by David E. Linge). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Risser, James (1997). Hermeneutics and the Voice of the Other. Re-reading Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Stige, Brynjulf (2006). Under the Voice of the Other. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=colstige231006