Modern science, whose methodologies give special privilege to using decontextualizing strategies and downplay the role of context-sensitive strategies, have been extraordinarily successful in producing knowledge whose applications have transformed the shape of the lifeworld. Nevertheless, I argue that how the mainstream of the modern scientific tradition interprets the nature and objectives of ...

In long-term care facilities, the participation of older people relates to individual care provision (individual level) and to policy decisions that affect all residents in a care organization (collective level). In the Netherlands, resident councils are set up in order to improve resident participation on a collective level. However, our research shows that managers and resident councils are f...

Objective To understand the reasons that lead men who use alcohol and other drugs to attempt suicide. Methods Qualitative research at an alcohol and psychosocial drugs support centre (CAPSad) in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in December of 2011, with 11 men who use alcohol and other drugs and who attempted suicide. Data were collected by means of phenomenological interviewing. The phe...

The paper presents a critical inquiry into the relationship between Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and progressive rationalisation in modern organisations. By drawing on the evidence from a field study of a University consultative process, the paper investigates how communicative practices embedded in a public discourse via CMC influence rationalisation of organisational processes. This ...

A lifeworld hermeneutic approach was used in order to understand Swedish women's thoughts on childbearing. Nine women were interviewed, and they ranged in age from 22 to 28 years and represented diverse socioeconomic, educational, sexual, and fertility backgrounds. All women were similar in that they lacked experience of giving birth and parenthood. The analysis showed that childbearing include...

This following article is a reprint of “Ethnomedicine and medical anthropology. A survey of developments in Germany” from “Reviews in Anthropology” 4, 4: 473–485, 1978. Thirty years ago the author analyzed the discourses in Medical Anthropology taking place in German speaking countries. He referred to important initiators of this new interdisciplinary field such as Edmund Husserl and his concep...

This paper proposes an anatomy of the phenomena of life and of correlate qualitative modes of empirical research, theory, and professional practice concerned with health and well-being. I explicate the qualitative dynamic operative at every level of order, from the biological realm of cells and organisms, through distinctively human lifeworld experiences and practices, to communities of organis...

The aim of this study was to explore how female PhD students experience and perceive their well-being. Focus groups were conducted with female PhD students employed at a Swedish university. The study was performed using a phenomenological hermeneutic approach based on the concept of the lifeworld, used as both a philosophical perspective and a methodology. Three main themes emerged from the ana...