Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Listen, and You Will-Hear: Reflections on Interviewing from a Feminist Phenomenological Perspective

  • Chapter
Feminist Phenomenology

Part of the book series: Contributions to Phenomenology ((CTPH,volume 40))

Abstract

Contemporary feminist critique continues to reveal conventional sociological methods and theoretical frameworks of analysis that are fundamentally at odds with or exclude from inquiry the multiple realities of women’s lived experiences. In light of this and other feminist principles, this paper explores the extraordinary potential of feminist phenomenology as a tool for research that concerns itself with “starting from women’s experiences.” Applied to in-depth interviews/oral histories, this means learning to “listen in stereo”—to listen with restraint to the meanings of the experience of the respondents. It also means applying to the interview situation a feminist framework that builds connections and avoids alienation of the researcher from the participants.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 189.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Anderson, Kathryn, and Dana C. Jack. 1991. Learning to Listen: Interviewing Techniques and Analyses. In Gluck and Patai.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartky, Sandra Lee. 1990. Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Belenky, Mary, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger, and Jill Tarule. 1986. Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self Voice and Mind. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berg, Ellen. Feminist Theory: Moving Sociology from the “Malestream.” Footnotes 15 (March): 5–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowles, Gloria, and Renate Duelli Klein, eds. 1983. Theories of Women’s Studies. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cannon, Lynn Weber, Elizabeth Higginbotham, and Marianne L.A. Leung. 1988. Race and Class Biases in Qualitative Research on Women. Gender and Society 2: 449–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Demetrakopoulos, Stephanie. 1983. Listening to Our Bodies: The Rebirth of Feminine Wisdom. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeVault, Marjorie L. 1990. Talking and Listening from Women’s Standpoint: Feminist Strategies for Interviewing and Analysis. Social Problems 37: 701–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Donchin, Anne. 1986. The Future of Mothering: Reproductive Technology and Feminist Theory. Hypatia 1, no. 2: 121–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ewick, Patricia. 1994. Integrating Feminist Epistemologies in Undergraduate Research Methods. Gender and Society 8: 92–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson, Kathy E. 1993. The Main Question: Visions of Subjectivity in Feminist Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, Linda. Towards a Phenomenology of Gendered Consciousness. Paper presented at the Research Symposium on Feminist Phenomenology, Florida Atlantic University, November 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fishman, Pamela. 1978. Interaction: The Work Women Do. Social Problems 25: 397–406.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a Diffèrent Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gluck, Sherpa Berger, and Daphne Patai, eds. 1991. Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gouldner, Alvin W. 1971. The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. New York: Avon Equinox.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gunew, Sneja, ed. 1990. Feminist Knowledge: Critique and Construction. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hempel, Carl. 1965. Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harding, Sandra. 1986. The Science Question in Feminism. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jack, Dana C. 1991. Interview Analysis: Listening for Meaning. In Gluck and Patai.

    Google Scholar 

  • James, Bev. 1986. Taking Gender into Account: Feminist and Sociological Issues in Social Research. New Zealand Sociology 1: 18–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, Debra Renee. 1990. Rachel’s Daughters: Newly Orthodox Jewish Women. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keller, Evelyn Fox. 1985. Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keller, Evelyn Fox, and Christine R. Grontkowski. 1983. The Mind’s Eye. In Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill B. Hintikka, 207–24. Boston: D. Reidel Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kessler, Suzanne J., and Wendy McKenna. 1978. Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lauretis, Teresa de. 1984. Alice Doesn Y: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levesque-Lopman, Louise. 1980. Being Pregnant: There Is More to Childbirth Than Having a Baby. St. Catharines, Ontario: Diliton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levesque-Lopman, Louise. 1984. Decision and Experience: A Phenomenological Analysis of Pregnancy and Childbirth. Human Studies 6: 247–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levesque-Lopman, Louise. 1987. Women’s Subjective Experience: Phenomenological Sociology as Method of Inquiry. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levesque-Lopman, Louise. 1988. Claiming Reality: Phenomenology and Women’s Experience. Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levesque-Lopman, Louise. 1990. Seeing Our Seeing: Gouldner’s Reflexive Sociology from a Feminist Phenomenological Perspective. The American Sociologist 20, no. 4: 362–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levesque-Lopman, Louise. 1993. Reproductive Technologies and the “Survival” of the “Human Subject” Human Studies 16: 329–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mast, Sharon. 1988. Qualitative Sociology in New Zealand. In Shulamit Reinharz and Peter Conrad, eds. Qualitative Sociology 11: 99–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • McBride, Angela Barron, and William Leon McBride. 1981. Theoretical Underpinnings for Women’s Health. Women and Health 6 (6/1): 37–55.

    Google Scholar 

  • Natanson, Maurice. 1977. Alfred Schutz Symposium: The Pregivenness of Sociality. In Interdisciplinary Phenomenology: Selected Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, ed. Don Ihde and Richard M. Zaner. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, Lynn Hankinson. 1990. Who Knows: From Quine to Feminist Empiricism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nielsen, Joyce McCarl, ed. 1989. Feminist Research Methods: Readings in the Social Sciences. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Brien, Mary. 1981. The Politics of Reproduction. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ostrow, James M. 1990. Kurt H. Wolff on the Origins and Significance of the Idea of Surrender-and-Catch. Qualitative Studies in Education 3, no. 4: 365–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raymond, Janice. 1979. The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reinharz, Shulamit. 1988. Controlling Women’s Lives: A Cross-Cultural Interpretation of Miscarriage Accounts. In Dorothy Wertz, ed. Research in the Sociology of Health Care 7: 2–37. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reinharz, Shulamit. with the assistance of Lynn Davidman. 1992. Feminist Methods in Social Research. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reisman, Catherine. 1990. Divorce Talk: Women and Men Make Sense of Personal Relationships. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandelowski, Margarete, and Christine Pollock. 1986. Women’s Experiences of Infertility. IMAGE: Journal of Nursing Scholarship 18: 140–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schutz, Alfred. 1962. Collected Papers, Vol. I: The Problem of Social Reality. Ed. and introduced by Maurice Natanson, with a Preface by H.L. Van Breda. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schutz, Alfred. 1967. The Phenomenology of the Social World. Trans. George Walsh and Frederick Lehnert, with an Introduction by George Walsh. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. 1980. Phenomenology of Dance. Salem, NH: Ayer Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spender, Dale. 1980. Man-Made Language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Dorothy E. 1974. Women’s Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology. Sociological Inquiry 44: 7–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Dorothy E. 1979. A Sociology for Women. In The Prism of Sex: Essays in the Sociology of Knowledge, ed. Julia A. Sherman and Evelyn Torton Beck, 135–87. Wisconsin: University of Wiscons in Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Dorothy E. 1987. The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stacey, Judith. 1990. Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late Twentieth Century America. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stacey, Judith., and Barrie Thorne. 1985. The Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology. Social Problems 32: 301–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stanley, Liz, and Sue Wise. 1983. Breaking Out: Feminist Consciousness and Feminist Research. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Todd, Alexandra Dumas, and Sue Fisher, eds. 1988. Gender and Discourse: The Power to Talk. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex.

    Google Scholar 

  • Treichler, Paula A. 1990. Feminism, Medicine, and the Meaning of Childbirth. In Body/Politics: Women and the Discourses of Science, ed. Mary Jacobus, Evelyn Fox Keller, and Sally Shuttleworth. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morstein, Petra. 1988. Epistemology and Women in Philosophy: Feminism Is a Humanism. In Gender Bias in Scholarship: The Pervasive Prejudice, ed. Winnifred Tom and Gordon Hamilton, 147–65. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, for the Calgary Institute for the Humanities.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webb, Christine. 1984. Feminist Methodology in Nursing Research. Journal of Advanced Nursing 9: 249–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weitzman, Lenore. 1985. The Divorce Revolution: The Unexpected Social and Economic Consequences for Women and Children in America. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wertz, Richard, and Dorothy C. Wertz. 1979. Lying-In: A History of Childbirth in America. New York: Schocken.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, Kurt H. 1976. Surrender and Catch: Experience and Inquiry Today. Boston: D. Reidel.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, Kurt H. 1991. Survival and Sociology: Vindication of the Human Subject. New Brunswick: Transaction.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, Iris Marion. 1984. Pregnant Embodiment: Subjectivity and Alienation. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 9: 45–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zimmerman, Mary K. 1977. Passage through Abortion: The Personal and Social Reality of Women’s Experiences. New York: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Louise Levesque-Lopman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Windsor, Canada

    Linda Fisher

  2. Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology, Florida Atlantic University, USA

    Lester Embree

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Levesque-Lopman, L. (2000). Listen, and You Will-Hear: Reflections on Interviewing from a Feminist Phenomenological Perspective. In: Fisher, L., Embree, L. (eds) Feminist Phenomenology. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 40. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9488-2_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9488-2_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5563-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9488-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation