Inside/Outside: Descriptive Phenomenological Methods and the Macro/Micro Gap

This paper was drawn from a qualitative study that sought to capture the experiences of a population group that are for the most part invisible within mainstream data and policy. Research involving LGBTQ+ people has historically privileged the experiences of White, gay men living in affluent areas with access to specialist services. Our study explored the health and social care pathways of marginalised LGBTQ+ people, for example those who had faced overlapping homelessness, substance use, domestic violence, or the criminal justice system. The setting was North East England, a region whose population experience significant health inequities and a lack of specialist services compared to other regions. A descriptive phenomenological approach was selected to privilege the lived experiences of participants. At the same time, the study was constructed around an intersectional, queer, critical feminist theoretical framework that sought to explore how social inequities – for example, linked to gender, race, or sexual orientation – interact to shape unique experiences of exclusion, stigma, and invisibility. This created a tension between a methodology which focused on individual subjective experience, and a theoretical framework that sought to recognise the influence of broader power structures. This is a familiar tension within qualitative health-related research, with established debates about the interaction of structure (social norms) and agency (individual actions). In this article, the authors document the adaptation and application of descriptive phenomenological methods that integrated the perspectives of others into participants’ descriptions of the phenomenon under study. In doing so, this approach also attended to intersectionality: acknowledging that people inhabit multiple social positions, which are impacted by power relations that shape their subjective experiences.