Phenomenology and the Study of Human Occupation

Abstract

Human occupation is the central construct of concern for occupational scientists, yet questions of how it should best be studied are only beginning to be debated in the literature. This article suggests that phenomenology holds promise as a methodological approach for the study of human occupation, and that further discussions about phenomenology in the field of occupational science are warranted. An examination of phenomenology as a methodology for the study of human occupation is undertaken, drawing primarily on the contributions of three major phenomenological philosophers: Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Five key dimensions of phenomenology, and its generative possibilities as a research methodology for the study of human occupation, are examined. These include: (a) a re-conceptualization of knowledge generation, (b) intentionality and the lifeworld, (c) the notion of Being, (d) the lived body, and (e) the potential of phenomenology to reveal critical insights. This last dimension suggests that modern variants of the phenomenological tradition may have lost sight of the critical origins of the philosophy. This examination considers a complex methodology that has potential to contribute to scholarly conversations concerning the study of human occupation, and to illuminate the centrality of occupation in everyday life.