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The lived body as experience and perspective: methodological challenges

University of Oslo, gunn.engelsrud{at}medisin.uio.no

The theme of the article is to question how the researcher’s body is involved both in creating accesses to, and in interpreting, material from qualitative research interviews. The researcher’s body is understood from a phenomenological perspective and regarded both as an access and as a limitation to the acquisition of knowledge. The article uses a concrete interview with an aerobic instructor, Edith, as means of illuminating this theme. It is attempted to discern connections between the context for the interview, how the material is created socially and textually and how the researcher utilizes information from own body in the interpretation of the material. The analysis illustrates what insights on a research process can involve, and shows some of the challenges inherent in an open and critical attitude in terms of the self and the other as embodied subjects. It is brought forward how the two parallel processes, both the interview and training, rest upon implicit conditions into which the article acquires greater insight. The article’s contribution of knowledge is to illustrate how the researcher can follow up and interpret states noticed in her own body. This can be made explicit and put into a meaningful context through discussion, analysis and reflection.

Key Words: experience • fitness • interview • lived body • method • phenomenology

Qualitative Research, Vol. 5, No. 3, 267-284 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1468794105054455


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