pls refer the attached  article (page 186 - 187)

Hermeneutic phenomenology is focused on subjective experience of individuals and groups. It is an attempt to unveil the world as experienced by the subject

through their life world stories. This school believes that interpretations are all we have and description itself is an interpretive process. To generate the best ever interpretation of a phenomenon it proposes to use the hermeneutic cycle

Respected Sir,

I can share few ideas what I understood from my reading.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) includes three areas as (as you know)

·         Phenomenology

·         Hermeneutics

·         Idiography

Phenomenology :- Theory of interpretation of texts.

Hermeneutics :-  Study of experience. 

Good Luck Sir.

Dear Sameem and Ahamed, 

Thank you for your answers to understand the difference of theoretical underpinnings of the two methodologies. I am also very much interested to know how the outcome of a study is different when the two methodologies are used. 

Thank you. 

I would put it little bit differently. Hermeneutic phenomenology is a much broader term (sometimes it can appear alongside the term phenomenological hermeneutics: the differences are philosophically important and it is about which part of the two is more relevant: interpretative process itself (hermeneutic circle) or grasping the essences of the phenomena). I would reserve the term hermeneutic phenomenology for the philosophical-intellectual movement. Interpretative phenomenological analysis is a more narrow term and it indicates a particular method of qualitative analysis of data that originates in the broader hermeneutic phenomenological movement. 

If only the differences between the two: Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis where so easy to explain.  A deeper understanding (interpretation) is needed by the person who poses this question.  I would suggest that you start with those publishers who have already interpreted the philosophy behind Hermeneutic Phenomenology as ontology, and those publishers  who have used IPA as epistemology.  Good luck!!!

Chinthaka,

If you wish to consider this question further, your nearby Dundee University hosts a website which you'll find by googling 'Hermeneutic Exchange'. That newly created website deals with (as its name suggests) Hermeneutic Phenomenology. Likewise, if you have not done so already, you'll find Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis presented by Jonathan Smith and others on a website hosted by Birkbeck College, University of London. The linking concept, I suggest, is 'horizons of understanding' which appears in Heidegger's Hermeneutic Phenomenology and is repurchased by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as 'themes'. 'Media Consumption in Malaysia - a Hermeneutics of Human Behaviour' deals with this topic in its early pages.

Regards,

Tony Wilson

The difference is subtle. 

I would say that to begin, HP is a methodology, a semi unified approach that includes an epistemology, ontology,  and method. IPA however is merely an analytic method. Granted, its underlying philosophical foundation is that of HP.

As far as the outcome of the research both aspire to provide a rich description of lived experience.  However, HP,  following Husserl, seeks the essence of the experience at focus while IPA seeks simply seeks to explicate how some kind of people experience a specific experience. 

Jacob, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, I suggest, was a departure from Husserl, carried forward by Heidegger, Gadamer and Ricoeur - though I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'understanding'! Regards, Tony.

Tony you are of course correct. However, no adequate account of phenomenology of any kind can overlook Husserl's foundational work. When I sai that HP follows Husserl I meant in the respect that it strives for essences. That is primarily a Husserlian endeavor. See van Manen's (2014) Phenomenology of Practice, as well as his earlier (1990) Reseaching Lived Experience to see how his HP draws extensively on Husserl's striving towards essences. See also 

Dahlberg, K. (2006). The essence of essences-the search for meaning structures in phenomenological analysis of lifeworld phenomena. International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being, 1(1), 11-19.

to get a notion of Husserl's "essence seeking".

Hello Jacob, thanks for reminding me of Van Manen's work - I attended some of his presentations in a medical faculty many years ago, and he's an impressive speaker. I have attached a Glossary entry on Thompson's hermeneutics where he clearly draws upon Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology. If you mean (sic!) that a hermeneutic phenomenology 'strives for essences' in seeking a Heideggerian structure of human understanding as 'fore-having', 'fore-seeing' and so shaped by 'fore-conceptions' - and follows this through in writing by Gadamer and Ricoeur - then 'yes!'

Regards,

Tony

Hello Jacob, and Tony, my understanding is that descriptive phenomenology is more about capturing the "essence" or the "universal essence" of the participants' lived experience, but that hermeneutic phenomenology acknowledges that each participant has their own interpretation of their lived experience, and then the researcher has also his/her own interpretation of their experiences, so capturing the universal "essence" is not claimed in hermeneutic or interpretive phenomenology. Isn't that right? 

Yes, Narges, that's correct, but I don't think that's what Chinthaka was asking! Tony.

Good reading Understanding the Differences between Husserl’s (Descriptive) and

Heidegger’s (Interpretive) Phenomenological Research

Gina M. Reiners*

Hi every body.

I hope the attached file answer your question. 

@Thank you very much Suha

I have used van Manen’s framework in my doctoral work. I see IPA as a methodology within the Interpretive Phenomenological Paradigm. Read Kafle’s paper on ‘ Hermeneutic phenomenological research method simplified’ and Laverty’s ‘Hermeneutic phenomenology and phenomenology: Historical and methodological considerations’ before going to Smith’s IPA. Good Luck !

Hermeneutic Phenomenology is a phenomenological approach focused on interpreting to generate sense of individual's subjective lived experience. The meaning making is undertaken through a hermeneutic circle in which horizons of understanding between the researcher and participants are fused together to provide a broader understanding of a specific phenomenon under investigation. However, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) although considered as a methodology, it is best suitable to be used as an analysis strategy of phenomenolgical data. IPA is embedded in hermeneutic phenomenology to enable a researcher engage into meaning making.

Hermeneutic Phenomenology as I understand is an overarching Philosophy along with others such as identifying Epistemology, Ontology, etc. Whereas, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis is an idiographic and inductive method that outlines the method by which we can analyze our data (i.e. Participants' lived experiences) and create an understanding of the phenomena that emerge. IPA has been informed by Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, and Idiography.

IPA, I suggest, could also be termed Interpretative Phronetic Analysis, where phronesis (from Aristotle) is practical wisdom. Gadamer within Truth and Method establishing his hermeneutic analysis, regarded the analysis of phronesis as a primary instance. So, I suggest, that IPA's hermeneutic research could well be regarded as being the analysis of participants' own practical wisdom.

Great to see I keep on getting responses for a question I asked in 2015. Also great to see the evolving responses and diversity of making sense of IPA. Please see our paper around IPA and entrepreneurship, published in International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research (CABS 3*) https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJEBR-10-2019-0601/full/html

Thank you.

Both of them are philosophical terms and more importantly epistemological positions in qualitative research.

Hi. Thanks for all the info everyone - i'm jumping on a little here, but would (or rather, could) one discuss the lifeworld dimensions in a study using IPA? Or would this be totally incorrect?

Thanks

Hi Amy,

Using IPA one investigates the interviewee's understanding-in-practice within their familiar 'life-world' (Husserl).

Hi Tony Wilson thank you for the very prompt reply! Great - so i could then follow the steps for IPA (e.g. adding experiential statements and exploratory notes to my transcript, identifying codes/themes, etc.) but then also consider the data in terms of spatiality, temporality, embodiment, and sociality to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the essence of the phenomenon? And could i ask, when would one do this? Would this be done individually for each participant before cross-case analysis? Thanks again

Hi Amy, I suggest that working within the concept of 'life-world', one explores these participants' experience of familiarity, that is recognising.

Thanks for the suggestion Tony Wilson I will look into familiarity.

Hi Amy,

How are you getting on with this issue?

I have also considered your question as to what extent lifeworld dimensions could come into IPA. I concluded that as I wanted to uphold the IPA method, which positions the participant as primary within an inductive process, that I would bring a light touch to a discussion on lifeworld dimensions. I am certainly going to avoid looking as though I am conducting a framework analysis using lifeworld dimensions.

Do let us know what you have decided. Best wishes.

Hi Amy,

I suggest that looking at a research participant's understanding-in-practice within how they represent the world to themselves, their familiar 'horizons of understanding' (Gadamer), one is seeing them within their 'life-world' (Husserl).