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Embodied Categorizing in the Grounded Theory Method

Methodical Hermeneutics in Action

York University

Karen D. Fergus

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

In this article it is argued that attention to embodied experiencing enhances the quality of categorizing in the grounded theory method of qualitative research. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s model of experiential cognition is applied to the structural features of embodied categorizing, while Eugene Gendlin’s philosophy of experiential phenomenology is extended to use of embodied experiencing in the process of creating and evaluating categories. This use is demonstrated. The method’s procedure of categorizing is connected more tightly with its methodology, seen by the authors as methodical hermeneutics, and with its epistemology, seen as an accommodation of realism and relativism. The article concludes with practical implications for the practice of categorizing in the grounded theory method.

Key Words: embodiment • epistemology • experiential cognition • experiential phenomenology • grounded theory methodology • hermeneutics

Theory & Psychology, Vol. 16, No. 4, 483-503 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0959354306066202


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