Complex Hermeneutic-Phenomenological Approach and Intersubjectivity

Toward a Science of Wholeness

Abstract

In this article, we present the intersubjective potential of the Complex Hermeneutic-Phenomenological Approach (CHPA) (FREIRE, 2017) as a qualitative methodological pathway capable of reintroducing the researcher as a subject within the research process, thereby articulating the researcher and the object of inquiry. By presenting two studies that employed this approach, we seek to illustrate its methodological operationalization. We consider that every research project, from its very design, already anticipates the horizon it aims to reach; an aspect recognized by the CHPA as inherent to research involving human beings. The approach is configured as a methodological path that intentionally embraces unpredictability and uncertainty, emphasizing the researcher’s ethical responsibility, constructing “science of wholeness” (ALMEIDA, 2017, p. 160). This approach thus emerges as a methodological alternative for contemporary qualitative research which, unlike the positivist attempt to eliminate subjectivity, seeks to reintegrate the research process and the researcher through the description and interpretation of the investigated human experience, in order to apprehend its essence.