Este artículo tiene como objetivo presentar la sociología hermenéutica del conocimiento fuera de la investigación social cualitativa convencional: para delinear sus principios, enfoques y necesidades y sugerir posibles áreas de aplicación.
This article aims to present hermeneutic sociology of knowledge outside of conventional qualitative social research, so as to outline its principles, approaches and requirements and suggest possible areas of application.
“The world is a world of meaning
(Mead,
Hermeneutic sociology of knowledge is an evolving, complex
This article aims to present hermeneutic sociology of knowledge outside of conventional qualitative social research: to outline its principles, approaches and requirements and suggest possible areas of application. It will not, however, be possible to entirely rework the approach from a marketing perspective.
Hermeneutic sociology of knowledge sees itself theoretically as belonging to sociology of knowledge and operationally/methodologically to
Hermeneutic sociology of knowledge does all this not just as part of developing social theory in the long term, but also in order to understand and explain the actions of people and (people in) organisations, which can also be useful for prognosis. Hermeneutic sociology of knowledge is thus aimed as much at the individual case as the type, and at practice as much as theory.
It examines how subjects of action – situated and socialised in historically and socially developed, confirmed routines and interpretations of the given field of action (patterns, types, orders, structures) – on the one hand encounter and (are compelled to) appropriate these routines and interpretations, and on the other constantly lend them new interpretations and thereby (are compelled to) invent them in their own individual way. These independent reinterpretations of given knowledge are in turn fed back (similarly as knowledge) into the social field of action and change it.
From this perspective, the action of these subjects can only be (said to have been) understood if the interpreter is able, on the basis of the collected data (interviews, observations, documents, etc.), to relate it to the given frame of reference relevant to the practice in question and show it in
Hermeneutic sociology of knowledge has applications above all in (cultural) sociology, education sciences, psychology, and communication sciences. It is increasingly attracting a great deal of interest in
Brand profiles, organisations, artefacts, design and service concepts and much more are never just the outwardly visible part of a product alone: they always have a form. And form – this is true for all products made by man – always tells us something about how whatever it encloses is to be understood as a whole. Products, services and organisations mean something (to us) because they have a form. Form, therefore, is always constructed, it is always communication.
Forms mean something. This they have in common with images and language. Certain forms mean certain things in certain contexts. What they mean has been shaped and stratified historically and is anchored in the culture of a society. All competent members of a culture have knowledge of the forms, even though they may not always be able to explain them exactly. They react to meaning without having – and often without being able – to verbalise it.
Qualitative methods are particularly valuable in market research for attempting to understand and explain the ‘message’ an organisation, product, service or form is communicating in order to assess
Another possibility, however, (following the example of cultural studies – cf. Bromley, Göttlich & Winter,
Since the focus of hermeneutic sociology of knowledge is on the analysis of interaction, it is similarly very well suited to the analysis and preparation of sales negotiations, job interviews, business meetings, presentations and management processes.
There is no social constellation that necessarily produces same events or things and sets them on a certain course anywhere in the world. Events, like products and organisations, take a different form wherever and whenever they occur. How events develop and products are created (and appropriated) is always unique, and in order to understand them, it is necessary to trace their development.
History does not proceed in a straight line, one step after the other, but erratically, changing direction as it goes. It develops out of the actions, interpretations, hopes, problems and opportunities of individual and collective actors, who through their actions hope to address or even solve their problems. This also creates a form of social order, albeit an imperfect one containing inaccuracies, contradictions, retractions, errors, self-deceptions and coincidences.
Qualitative social research in the sense of a sociology of knowledge approach to hermeneutics can
The fundamental question in the
Actions, and from a sociological standpoint this much seems certain, do not join together of their own accord (that is, out of themselves) into one higher-level, overall action. Individual actions do not contain some inherent law that compels further action in a certain order and certain direction from within. Actions must be driven and joined together by actors who seek meaning in their interpretations and decisions. In face-to-face interaction, the participants in the ‘here and now’ weave a coordinated (and not always, but usually, complete) overall action – such as a conversation, a game of billiards, or a dispute. This interactive weaving process by no means comes out of nowhere: the participants draw on partly conscious, partly tacit knowledge of the historically and socially developed, and often also heavily sanctioned, practices, routines, frameworks, types and rules governing it. To this extent, recollection of the social groundwork (and knowledge of the sanctions) plays a role in every interaction, but the groundwork is necessarily open to variation and revision of recollections on account of the actors’ orientation towards meaning.
What is special about how actions are joined together in face-to-face interactions is that the participants remain in the situation of the ‘here and now’. When the face-to-face interaction comes to an end, the participants – if they meet again – must pick up on a ‘there and then’ and constantly reiterate, confirm, reduce or modify what was said in that interaction. Whatever they do, they will have to combine or connect their actions in some way to achieve continuity and identity. Here too, socially developed practices, genres and rules are available for this purpose.
Often, however, other actors (invited or uninvited, with or without power) enter into the actions of the ‘here and now’: other actors from a ‘there’ have heard of or observe an action in the ‘here and now’ and attach their own action to it, become involved or comment on it. Or they expect certain action from certain people in the ‘here and soon’ or ‘there and soon’ and shape their own actions according to what they anticipate in the future. For example, a bystander may merely remark on a game of billiards, or he or she may announce an intention to challenge the winner of the present game today or tomorrow. If, or more precisely because, all these actors are aware of each other, and because their actions affect one another, they create chains of actions in time and space.
The number of people who regularly link their actions may vary a great deal, as does the intensity with which they are coordinated or the constancy of the people involved. Couples will belong to the smallest groups, demonstrations or events like the Love Parade to the larger. Some groups will connect their actions in time and space very frequently and repeatedly (e.g. married couples), others only occasionally (e.g. neighbours); others still will only become involved in the actions of others for a specific purpose (demonstrators), on a limited number of occasions (estate agents) or at specific times (churchgoers), and some will be avoided altogether, or at most encountered only once (fight).
If people repeatedly combine their actions or enter (often by contract) into social forms (organisations) in which their actions are repeatedly linked together in a specific and coordinated way, this soon results in more rather than fewer fixed constellations of actors and more rather than fewer binding forms of the tried and tested, and for that environment therefore usual, combination of actions.
This is a
Within this perspective, the subjects’ action can only be (said to have been) understood if the interpreter is able, on the basis of the collected data (interviews, observations, documents, etc.), to relate it to the given frame of reference relevant to the practice in question and portray it in
The term ‘problem of action’ here quite formally describes the situation whereby human actors must continually shape the course of their action. Even if it is theoretically unclear whether that action just flows steadily on, ‘quantises’ or jumps fitfully from (conscious) decision to decision, in each situation the actors must pick one way of acting from all the possible further actions available to them. Usually, they unthinkingly follow traditions, routines or formulas. Sometimes, however, they also follow an inner impulse or are moved in a particular direction by the dynamics of an interaction, and sometimes they make a conscious decision, weighing up the pros and cons and taking the anticipated and hoped-for outcomes, and any unwanted consequences, into account. In such cases they make a conscious – and perhaps even rational – decision. No matter which of these ‘solutions’ people choose to solve their problem, ‘knowledge’ will always help to close the gap between possibility and realisation.
In this sense, the role of knowledge is to build a bridge from the ‘here’ to the ‘there’. Knowledge helps people to move from the ‘here and now’ to the ‘there and soon’. Whenever the problem of how to act next arises, and it does so again and again, that is where knowledge comes in.
‘Knowledge’ in this context is
This perspective is
This perspective is
To be more precise and address any potential misunderstandings, the central point is naturally
Or to put it another way, it is concerned with (1) reconstruction of the structural problems individuals must overcome when acting within a certain framework (irrespective of whether they know of these problems), and (2) reconstruction of the possibilities for action opened up by this particular structure (and those which are not immediately apparent) as a ‘solution’ to these problems.
To reiterate (and address a very popular objection to hermeneutic research): understanding and explaining events does not rely on presuppositions which believe that the causes of the events we are trying to understand lie in the special features or peculiarities of certain actors. Exhaustion, conflicts in relationships, emotional outbursts, psychological problems, even the weather and other adversities may ultimately determine an action, yet such ‘explanations’ are not only of little use to sociologists in understanding and explaining the past. At most they may be useful for storytellers.
The findings of hermeneutic studies can indeed be generalised, abstracted and (depending on the research interest) even used to flesh out a social theory or a theory of society, and an attempt can be made to use both in understanding, explaining and possibly even averting current and similar processes. What is
Hermeneutic sociology of knowledge is not about identifying subjective meaning in the sense of subjective idiosyncrasies, but always about typical patterns of social action that have emerged in a typical manner in specific societies with a specific culture. These patterns form the horizon for new and subsequent appropriations by actors. They can be reproduced by the actors, but they can also be modified. These patterns of social action are captured and handed down through experiences, stories, texts, laws and sometimes also in buildings.
That is why any sociology of knowledge analysis (even if the
Hermeneutic sociology of knowledge always begins with the individual case and identifies what makes it different, its special features, from other cases. If scientists make broad generalisations without knowing about the distinctions between cases and events that make a difference, they are often saying more than they can actually answer for. One of the aims of science is undoubtedly
This is precisely what hermeneutic sociology of knowledge sets out to do and does: its central concern is with the connecting pattern, the pattern that makes things comprehensible, that explains. It does not, as some critics claim and (apparently) also fear, generally avoid explaining social events. Nevertheless, within this type of research, it is true that ‘explaining’ can no longer be associated with simple determinism, but with probabilities.
However, this can be attributed to the special nature of the object of sociology of knowledge research: this object (= meaningful human action) does not only react to the practice of the actors because they interpret the past and shape their actions according to it; the actors themselves also react very sensitively to interpretations of their actions, e.g. in science and academia. The more scientists address the public in their publications and the easier public access to scientific findings becomes, the easier and more effectively science disturbs and alters the object of its investigations. In this way, the sciences play a role in shaping their subject. While this knowledge in itself is not particularly new, it is surprising that we need to be reminded of it.
Hermeneutic sociology of knowledge bases its findings on empirical research. It examines all forms of social interaction and all types of cultural event. Systematic ‘discovery’ of the new is a particular focus, and various provisions relating to method are designed to facilitate the process.
For instance, in the first research phase, researchers should work on developing an ‘abductive attitude’ (Reichertz,
The most resistant types of collected data in my opinion are
If it is not possible or viable to gather non-standardised data, researchers must produce their own by drawing up observation protocols and conducting interviews. In doing so, they are well advised to work according to scientifically binding standards so that the data they produce also share the same (scientific) standard.
The following two principles of data collection are important to bear in mind: (1) researchers should go out into the field to collect data as
Hermeneutic sociology of knowledge uses the following method: during the initial stage, the data protocol is ‘openly coded’ (Strauss,
If in the ‘open coding’ phase researchers are looking for units of meaning (which naturally always already contain theoretical concepts and/or play with and refer to them), the second stage of interpretation involves the search for higher aggregated units of meaning and concepts which connect the sub-units. Now is also the time to justify why which (new) data should be collected again or more accurately. The third step thus involves drawing up new data protocols, albeit in a more targeted manner. In this way, interpretation controls data collection, but at the same time, and much more importantly, the interpretation is falsified, modified and expanded by the subsequently collected data.
The process reaches its conclusion when a highly aggregated concept, a ‘figure of meaning’ has been found or constructed that brings together
Hermeneutic sociology of knowledge is currently taught and practised primarily at German-speaking universities (Konstanz, Berlin, Dortmund, Essen, Bayreuth, St. Gallen, Switzerland, Vienna, Austria), yet there is still no concrete hermeneutic sociology of knowledge ‘school’. It is more a way of thinking and researching than a fixed method. Nevertheless, it is a research strategy a series of German, Swiss and Austrian researchers from different sociological disciplines explicitly rely on in their work. To date there has been no ‘official’ introduction to method in the hermeneutic sociology of knowledge, although Soeffner (2004a, 2006) and Soeffner & Hitzler (
The first
Translation: “What problem was perceived by the actors and overcome by the ensuing social constructions; in other words, what motivated the actors to attach themselves to an institution, an association, to a certain truth?”.
Translation: “didactically useful example of the pitfalls of the subreption of empirical hypotheses by a mere definition”.