Phenomenology

Darren Langdridge

pp. 165-183

in: Brendan Gough (ed), The Palgrave handbook of critical social psychology, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

Phenomenological psychology has been growing rapidly in popularity over the last 20 years. In this chapter, I outline the fundamentals of phenomenology and argue that it offers a powerful alternative to mainstream psychology, with considerable emancipatory potential. I do this by first discussing how the phenomenological focus on description of the things in their appearing allows us to attend closely to lived experience such that we prioritise the voices of our participants. And second, I show how an analysis of the lifeworld in phenomenology can be supplemented by social theoretical critique if we engage with ideas from hermeneutics.