Interpretive turn

From Geography

‘The 'interpretive turn' was essentially introduced by Immanuel Kant two centuries ago through the idea that what we experience as reality is shaped by our mental categories, although Kant thought of these categories as stable and transcendent’ (Lye, 2008). The interpretive turn has ensured that meaning has been re-located from 'reality out there' to 'reality as experienced by the perceiver (Lye, 2008). Ranbinow and Sullivan (1979) described the interpretive turn as a shift in the social sciences away from positivism and toward intrepretivism in the mid to late 20th century (Boettke, 1994)(Howe, 1989). An example of this is Charles Taylor he descibes the point of interpretation in his seminal: 'interpretation and the science man'(1987), where he see a man as a self-interpreting animal (Howe, 1989).

Central ideas of the interpretive turn

There are a number of ideas central in the interpretive turn (lye, 2008):

- an observer is inevitably a participant in what is observed.

- the receiver of a message is a component of the message.

- information is only information insofar as it is contextualized.

- individuals are cultural constructs whose conceptual worlds are composed of a variety of discursive structures, or ways of talking about and imagining the world.

- the world of individuals is not only multiple and diverse but is constructed by and through interacting fields of culturally lived symbols, through language in particular.

- all cultures are networks of signifying practices.

- therefore all interpretation is conditioned by cultural perspective and is mediated by symbols and practice.

- texts entail sub-texts, or the often disguised or submerged origins and structuring forces of the messages.

References

Boettke, P. J. (1994) The Elgar Companion to Austrian Economics. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited: Uk.

Howe,K. (1989). The Interpretive Turn and the new Debate in Education. Educational Researcher, 27(8), 13-21.

Lye, J. (2008). The Interpretive Turn. Founded on 10 oktober 2012, on http://www.brocku.ca/english/jlye/interpturn.php

Editors

Publisched by Lotte den Boogert, 10 oktober 2012