From Abstract to Concrete: Phenomenological Relationality, Spaces Between, and a Unified Visual Framework

The paper is drawn from the lead author’s doctoral study: a qualitative exploration of the health and social care pathways of a marginalised population group in North East England, a region impacted by increased health inequities in comparison to the rest of the country. One of the study’s challenges was to find a methodological framework that could capture some of the complexities of human social experience both within and across cultures. The pairing of bounded relativism with descriptive phenomenology aimed to address this by blurring the assumed boundaries between realism and relativism, subjectivity and objectivity. Descriptive phenomenology in particular places a value on people’s lived experiences that can be attractive for the qualitative researcher. However, those initially drawn to phenomenology may be faced with a steep learning curve: a bank of often dense philosophical literature; new terminology and concepts; and an array of criticism aimed at descriptive phenomenology as a research method. This paper documents how, despite these initial hurdles, methodological exploration and immersion into the literature brought new analytical vocabulary and perspectives to the current study. The authors then present practical examples of how phenomenological concepts were applied to the analysis of study interviews. These practical applications not only supported a richer synthesis of the study data but also led to the creation of the unified visual framework of relationality that is presented here.