Scholarly inquiry into subjective experience and how it shapes our ongoing actions remains one of the most important and contested aspects of social scientific inquiry. Terms from philosophy and psychology, from early in the last century, such as phenomenology and introspection were starting points for these inquiries that continue through today. In this workshop, we will reaffirm the importance of the study of subjective experience and examine contemporary approaches to this topic.

A rough dividing line can be drawn between contemporary approaches that look at subjective experience by asking the subject to provide this information through reporting on ‘internal’ experience and those that derive it by looking at its display in ‘external’ behaviour and interaction. The internal approach include very different methods starting from think aloud interview methods, with origins in information processing psychology, to Micro-Phenomenology, a methodology explicitly developed to study subjective experience that seeks to be both true to founding principles of philosophical phenomenology and to address critiques about introspection-like methods. The external approach shows a similar variety around the leading method of interaction analysis, rooted in conversation analysis and ethnomethodology, traditions that themselves have roots in what came to be called social phenomenology, initiated most substantively by Schutz. Lastly, there are methods that use physiological measures to make inferences about subjective experience, which we refer to as physiological approaches.

In this workshop, we will explore a range of methods belonging to one of the three approaches and consider affordances and challenges of each of them. The main goal however will be to look for opportunities to synthesise these approaches toward new insights and approaches to studying subjective experience.  

Speaker list (confirmed)

• Claire Petitmengin (Micro-Phenomenology), 
• Donata Schoeller (Gendlin's focusing method), 
• James Morley (Giorgi's descriptive phenomenological method), 
• Reed Stevens (Interaction Analysis), 
• Mari Levin (Knowledge Analysis) and 
• Natalie Depraz (Cardiophenomenology - a method combining heart rate analysis and Micro-Phenomenology).

Abstracts: 

As the bootcamp is designed to explore the possibility of mixed methods approaches, the speakers are asked to present the very principles of their method as well as a (short) example of an analysis to allow to see the nature of the results. 

To allow more time for discussion, each speaker provided an article about his/her approach that will be send to the participants before the workshop. WE KINDLY ASK ALL PARTICIPANTS TO PREPARE IN THIS WAY. 

As always, we also kindly ask participants to attend the FULL bootcamp rather than dropping in for some talks as the format is build on continuous participation.

For those having access via a university, the articles to prepare are:

For Claire Petitmengin: Petitmengin (2006) Describing one’s subjective experience in the second person: An interview method for the science of consciousness

For Donata Schoeller: Schoeller/Thorgeirsdottir Embodied Critical Thinking, The Experiential Turn and Its Transformative Aspects 

For James Morley: Giorgi/Giorgi/Morley (2017) The Descriptive Phenomenological Psychological Method

For Reed Stevens: Stevens (2010) Learning as a Members’ Phenomenon:Toward an Ethnographically Adequate Science of Learning

For Mariana Levin: di Sessa/Sherin/Levin Knowledge Analysis. An Introduction

For Natalie Depraz: Depraz/Desmidt (2018) Cardiophenomenology: a refinement of neurophenomenology

This bootcamp is organized as part of the PLAYTrack project, to enhance the methodological exploration on how to explore playful experiences.

The event stands in close connection to a seminar organized by Emily Hammond in London on the 22nd of March, The British Psychological Society, 30 Tabernacle Street, London EC2A 4UE, timing is 9:30am - 4:30pm. In this seminar phenomenological methods in psychology are standing in the center. 

REGISTRATION for event in Aarhus.