and Agencies
By engaging people in monologic and dialogic data collection, sharing the results of critical analysis, and supporting participant action on these findings, critical ethnographic processes and results can assist individuals, groups, and communities in addressing their own situations or lobbying to change oppressive social structures. For example, engaging sole parent welfare recipients and welfare agencies in a critical ethnographic analysis of return-to-work efforts may provide impetus for single parents and welfare agencies to lobby for increased benefit levels and support services.
rather than on a broader social or cultural setting, such as the education system. In many of the research studies using critical ethnographic methodologies, this appears to be the case. Again, how researchers are able to link site-specific interactions with broader social and cultural systems is a challenge.
In summary, the methodology of critical ethnogra- phy has emerged as a useful approach to explore many of the issues confronting contemporary society.
Although there are a range of possibilities in terms of method, these need to be located within a robust ontology and epistemology to counter challenges posed by critics of openly ideological research.
Although a single study might not achieve the struc- tural change desired by either researchers or partici- pants, adhering to the principles of critical research methodologies will enable both parties to identify and explore oppression and inequality and to move closer to emancipatory action.
Kay E. Cook
See alsoAction Research; Critical Research; Critical Theory;
Ethnography
Further Readings
Anderson, G. L. (1989). Critical ethnography in education:
Origins, current status, and new directions.Review of Educational Research, 59,249–270.
Carspecken, P. F. (1996).Critical ethnography in educational research.New York: Routledge.
Cook, K. E. (2005). Using critical ethnography as a research technique for health promotion.Qualitative Health Research, 15,129–138.
Hardcastle, M.-A., Usher, K., & Holmes, C. (2006).
Carspecken’s five-stage critical qualitative research method: An application to nursing research.Qualitative Health Research, 16,151–161.
Jordan, S., & Yeomans, D. (1995). Critical ethnography:
Problems in contemporary theory and practice.British Journal of Sociology of Education, 16,389–408.
Madison, D. S. (2005).Critical ethnography: Method, ethics, and performance.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Thomas, J. (1993).Doing critical ethnography(Qualitative Research Methods Series, No. 26). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
C
RITICALH
ERMENEUTICSCritical hermeneutics is the umbrella term for the shared theoretical and methodological projects
undertaken by a variety of philosophical and social- theoretical thinkers since the 1960s. It is “hermeneu- tics” because the core of the shared orientation consists in reconstructing the general grounds for the under- standing and interpretation of symbolic expressions, including texts, actions, images, and practices. Yet it is
“critical” because it takes the grounds of interpretation to be essentially linked to social power and domination and, thus, to require a systematic analysis of the nature, structure, and impact of power on the constitu- tion and understanding of meaning. In the same vein, the focus on power gives this theoretical project a crit- ical dimension inasmuch as its cognitive interest aims at a normatively motivated transformation of social practices toward more freedom, self-realization, and equality. The basic idea is that acts of interpretation are internally related to forms of power, whereas this reflexive insight can foster practices of critical inter- pretation within which power practices are unmasked.
Those existing power practices thereby become chal- lengeable, enabling an improved ethical practice.
Critical Social Theory as Critical Hermeneutics
We can distinguish two phases in the articulation of a critical hermeneutic paradigm. By “paradigm” here, we mean a coherent vision and perspective vis-à-vis the understanding of social agency as well as its sym- bolic and cultural expressions. Such a perspective emerges first in the debate between philosophical hermeneutics and critical social theory. Jürgen Habermas articulated, initially on the basis of neo- Marxist assumptions, a forceful criticism of Hans- Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics.
Gadamer’s lasting achievement was to bring Martin Heidegger’s insight on the universal significance of interpretation for human existence to bear on the methodological self-understanding of the human and social sciences. Humans are, in Charles Taylor’s words, interpreting animals; human agency is intrinsi- cally defined by linguistic concepts grounded in social and historical practices. Gadamer showed how this entails that all explicit understanding remains bound to an implicit pre-understanding that encompasses all interpretation. Given that pre-understanding makes interpretation possible because it provides a horizon of significance and relevance, the positivist illusion of objective understanding and neutral assessment of meaning must be abandoned. In its place moves the concept of a dialogic encounter of other meaning that Critical Hermeneutics———151
is oriented at truthfully explicating the other’s beliefs and assumptions while knowing that any such process will entail a fusion of horizons based on the involved background concepts.
Habermas understood the force of these insights but challenged the claim to universality that Gadamer raised on its basis. He rejected conceiving social-scientific understanding solely on the basis of a linguistic dia- logue because of the fact that language itself is shaped and determined by social factors. Modern bureaucratic power and capitalistic economy present us with objec- tive shaping forces that a comprehensive (and critical) social science must take into account. Taking such fac- tors into account means methodologically developing theoretical tools that transcend the internal first- and second-person orientation to dialogic meaning and introduce third-person explanatory models. For exam- ple, reading a religious text cannot focus solely on its intended meaning regarding the truthfulness of the mes- sage concerning God but also must recognize and ana- lyze how this discourse might express and legitimize social power and hierarchy. Habermas set out in a first step to conceive a theory of communicative compe- tence that entails the normative resources to understand critical interpretation, meaning that the orientation to validity is seen as essentially built into language use. Yet he eventually fulfilled the promise of a comprehensive social theory in his opus magnum theory of communica- tive action where he combined the internal communica- tive approach to meaning and truth with a functionalist perspective developed in terms of social systems theory.
This made it possible to analyze how value orientations might be systematically affected by structural social power relations.
The critical exchange between Habermas and Gadamer gave rise to a larger debate about the founda- tions of critical theory. In this context, the termcritical hermeneutics was first raised to capture the commu- nicative transformation of critical theory (which was initially conceived as a fusion of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud). Habermas’s paradigm of critical theory makes linguistic communication (not labor as with Marx) central, and it is oriented at communicative action as a means to engage in dialogic rationality so as to solve social conflicts. However, many believed that the hermeneutic insights into the contextual nature of interpretation and the moment of productive histor- ical dialogue here are given up for a universalist neo- Kantian conception of communication because in the end the validity claims of communication are seen as the most important structuring force of language. The
main emphasis of Habermas’s work and influence led to a discourse ethics and a normative theory of the law and democratic state. Attempts to relate communica- tive theory to issues relating directly to the intertwine- ment of discursive meaning and social power are already inspired by the second and mature paradigm of critical interpretation.
Critical Hermeneutics as Articulated Paradigm
The emergence of French poststructuralism (in partic- ular Michel Foucault but also Jacques Derrida) on the international scene set the stage for a new paradigm of critical interpretation. A fusion of hermeneutics and poststructuralism suggests itself because both per- spectives argue for the general significance of lan- guage for mediating human experience, both take such a mediation to be essentially contextually defined and articulated, and both agree that linguistic prac- tices or discourses are to be understood as expressions of social practices and contexts. Thus, the stage is set for a methodological connection of discourse and dia- logue with social power.
To be sure, the two paradigms exemplify radical dif- ferences in methodology: Philosophical hermeneutics continues and transforms a romantic first-person theory of understanding that it turns into a general form of dia- logic interpretation, according to which interpreters are engaged in coming to an agreement concerning the subject matter at stake. Poststructuralist discourse analysis, however, tries to objectify and distance the existing communicative practices to discern the under- lying rules, norms, or power structures that remain hid- den for the intentional understanding of agents. Yet the hermeneutic approach is itself essentially premised on the assumption of an implicit and linguistically medi- ated background understanding on which all dialogue necessarily draws. And one can show that any discourse analytic approach must approach the meaning of the communicative practices by reconstructing what the discourse is talking about, that is, its subject matter.
Thus, it turns out that a comprehensive conception of situated intentional understanding can integrate the insights of hermeneutics and poststructuralism by reconstructing how the implicit and linguistically medi- ated background relates to the intentional and con- scious interpretation of discourse.
Indeed, the methodological coalition of hermeneutic and poststructuralist ideas can strengthen interpretation 152———Critical Hermeneutics
by addressing blind spots in both positions.
Hermeneutics’ obvious weakness—the failure to take social power sufficiently seriously—was exposed by Habermas. But one can integrate into the conception of the hermeneutic background the layer of social power relations as a structuring force. This keeps power intrinsically connected and integrated to under- standing. Yet the poststructuralist tendency of giving power relations an overwhelming and excessive sig- nificance, such that intentional meaning and dialogic reflexivity are reduced to nothing but an expression of power, can now be avoided as well; because power relations are one dimension of a symbolically medi- ated background, they structure meaning without defining it in its entirety. Thus, dialogic interpretation can in good conscience attempt to achieve an adequate understanding of the subject matters and their con- texts and in this process can itself thematize the role of power for interpretation. Thus, we have arrived at a genuine mode of critical interpretation that avoids the Scylla of hermeneutic idealism, where all meaning finally fuses into a harmonious consensus of truth, and the Charybdis of power reductionism, where the epis- temic gain of power analysis is paid for by the aban- donment of any truth-based or normative meaning.
The Methodological Core of Critical Interpretation
The theoretical core of critical hermeneutics claims that all explicit or conscious acts of interpretation are essen- tially grounded in an implicit and unthematic back- ground understanding. Because this background is linguistically mediated and culturally and socially situ- ated (and, as such, always contextually anchored and defined), the internal orientation of one’s focus in inter- pretive understanding is unavoidably impregnated by social power practices. Accordingly, the horizon from within which all understanding initially takes off entails power because the linguistic background is, as such, shaped by social practices entailing power relations. Yet it is also true that the interpretive process can thematize, challenge, and partially transcend those power struc- tures through its internal dialogic dynamic that allows interpreters to transcend their previously taken-for- granted horizons and look critically from the outside at their own assumptions and practices. The practical core of critical hermeneutics, thus, is that although under- standing is structured by power, human agency is nev- ertheless not doomed to remain power defined.
The linguistically grounded capacity to interpret one’s
existence is seen as a critical source of self-definition and resistance capable of challenging and transforming existing social practices and, thus, of unleashing a potential of autonomy and self-realization the masking and control of which is precisely an effect of existing power. But how exactly is this process to be under- stood? How can the potential of critical self-reflexivity be unleashed through the process of dialogic interpreta- tion? And how are interpreters to approach their object such that the beliefs and assumptions of the other can develop their critical force?
The guiding idea for this methodological attitude is to reconstruct in a particular way the insight into the mutual dependence of linguistic meaning and inten- tional thought. To understand a symbolic expression, we need to understand the belief it expresses, that is, what it is about. Understanding something as mean- ingful entails that we take it to express a belief. But to understand a belief means that we need to have beliefs ourselves; accordingly, this requires that we correlate the other thought or belief to our own thoughts.
Similarly, whenever we encounter symbolic expres- sions or practices, interpreting them means that we articulate the beliefs they express. Thus, interpreting symbolic expressions means relating them to our own beliefs. Now because beliefs are thoughts that we take to be true, philosophical theories of interpretation tend to emphasize the necessity of attributing true beliefs to the meaning of another belief. Interpretation can succeed only if we can reach a truth-based fusion of horizons (Hans-Georg Gadamer) or maximize shared true beliefs (Donald Davidson). This assumption also guides Habermas’s conception of implicit yet founda- tional validity claims as grounding intersubjective understanding. Yet although it is true that all interpre- tation must begin at home, because we need to invest our own belief-based pre-understanding to reconstruct the meaning of symbolic expressions, the orientation at shared truth as an explicit methodological objective does not follow.
The critical hermeneutic approach grounds all interpretation in the interpreter’s background but reconstructs the process of dialogic interpretation as one within which the different symbolic, cultural–social, and individual presuppositions can become reflexive. Based on a phenomenology that captures all interpretive encounters—not just those that end in shared substantive consensus—the projec- tion of one’s own taken-to-be-true background beliefs is taken to be subjected to an ongoing check that often results in the articulation of differences concerning a Critical Hermeneutics———153
subject matter. The process of reflexive dialogic understanding that can be unleashed from here has three ideal typical phases.
First, the different symbolic background assump- tions are articulated in mutual contrast and an under- standing of the different ontological, value-based, or normative premises is reached. To profile the different symbolic ontological assumptions, the interpreter makes use of his or her epistemic outsider position vis-à-vis the other expressions and practices. The interpreter necessarily starts from his or her own con- ceptions to connect with the other context but at the same time brackets the normative value judgments that would suggest themselves given the interpreter’s background. Thus, it becomes possible to focus on the internal connections and assumptions that would make the other’s expressions valid according to the other’s respective contextual standards.
Second, the different symbolic premises are then looked at in the context of social practices and institu- tions, where the linguistic concepts and beliefs will show how their conceptualization of reality involves the constraining and predefining of experiences based on social power. Beliefs and assumptions here are seen as discursively structured because they are nec- essarily embedded in networks of discursive practices.
Those practices are always part of larger contexts of social networks that are organized in social fields.
Because their internal organization tends to be hierar- chical and constrained, the discourses themselves are internally influenced and structured by power. Here power works as a structuring force that shapes the background understanding of intentional agents and their self-understanding. The critical hermeneutic atti- tude is in particular interested in thematizing both the power relation between theorist and agent as well as the power relations that exist in the respective social background contexts of the agents and the theorists.
Third, this insight into the connections of dis- course–power relations can now be incorporated into the reflexive self-understanding of the agent as an interpreting subject. The process of critical interpre- tive reflexivity comes into its own when the agent qua self-interpreter learns to see hitherto taken-for-granted beliefs and assumptions as implicated in hierarchical and discriminating practices and, thus, is put in a posi- tion to react to them. Similarly, the theorist may come to see himself or herself as the agent with particular background assumptions that deserve further scrutiny.
Accordingly, although critical hermeneutics con- ceives social understanding to be an interpretive and
embedded process, it does not rest content with the given intentional orientation at meaning and truth in which either agents or theorists may be engaged.
Instead, this approach intends to restore meaning in its social (power) contexts and to challenge theorist and agent alike to reflexively thematize their hidden power dimensions, but without reducing this process itself to nothing but an expression of power. The goal is a state of critical reflexivity that should inform a complex conception of situated autonomous agency.
In this respect, critical hermeneutic insights, some- times under this explicit label and sometimes not, have been explored in a variety of fields, including cultural anthropology (James Clifford in1988; Brita Renee Heimark in 2003), religious studies (Fiorenza Schüssler in 2000), reflexive sociology (Pierre Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant in 1992; Hans-Herbert Kögler et al. in 1997), multiculturalism and intercul- tural understanding (Cosimo Zene and Arvind Mair in 2005 and 2006), and social psychology (Jack Martin et al. in 2003; Frank Richardson in 2002). At stake are the understanding of other cultures, differ- ent religious traditions, intercultural relations, the agency/structure relation, and a new conception of agency and autonomy. A methodological approach can be defined as critical hermeneutic when the situ- ated reconstruction of another’s (and in turn one’s own) meaning premises is undertaken with the explicit consciousness of the power relations involved and with the declared goal to enhance the critical reflexivity and ethical self-determination of the social agents in light of this.
In sum, critical hermeneutics is a philosophically grounded approach that aims at reconstructing the basic implications of all understanding and interpreta- tion such that this critical process can become a viable option for human agents. Its aim is to foster a method- ological practice of critical interpretation that defines a normative practical attitude of analysis in social and cultural studies.
Hans-Herbert Kögler See alsoCritical Theory; Hermeneutics; Poststructuralism
Further Readings
Bourdieu, P., & Wacqaunt, L. (1992).An invitation to reflexive sociology.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Clifford, J. (1988).The predicament of culture.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
154———Critical Hermeneutics
Davidson, D. (1984).Inquiries into truth and interpretation.
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Gadamer, H.-G. (1989).Truth and method.New York:
Crossroads. (Original work published 1960)
Heimark, B. R. (2003).Balinese discourses on music and modernization: Village voices and urban views.London:
Routledge.
Hoy, D. (1982).The critical circle.Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hoy, D., & McCarthy, T. (1994).Critical theory.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Kinsella, E. (2006). Hermeneutics and critical hermeneutics:
Exploring possibilities within the art of interpretation.
Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 7(3). Available from http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/fqs-eng.htm Kögler, H.-H. (1997). Alienation as epistemological source:
Reflexivity and social background after Mannheim and Bourdieu. (Special issue: New directions in the sociology of knowledge)Social Epistemology, 11(2).
Kögler, H.-H. (1999).The power of dialogue: Critical hermeneutics after Gadamer and Foucault.Cambridge:
MIT Press.
Mandair, A., & Zene, C. (2005). Dialogue as the inscription of the West.Social Identities, 11,171–175.
Mandair, A., & Zene, C. (2006). Refusals: Opening the difference in dialogue.Social Identities, 12,1–3.
Martin, J., Sugarman, J., & Thompson, J. (2003).Psychology and the question of agency.Albany: State University of New York Press.
Ormiston, G., & Schrift, A. (Eds.). (1990).The hermeneutic tradition: From Ast to Ricoeur.Albany: State University of New York Press.
Richardson, F. (2002).Current dilemmas, hermeneutics, and power.Presidential address delivered at the meeting of the Division of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology of the American Psychological Association, Chicago.
Schüssler, F. (2000). The conflict of hermeneutical traditions and Christian theology.Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 27,3–31.
Thompson, J. (1981).Critical hermeneutics: A study in the thought of Jürgen Habermas and Paul Ricoeur.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.