ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the way in which the author's interpretations of participants were made. It provides a more credible account of the Serbian Australian experience. To illustrate the practice of interpretation of participants, the chapter refers to an extract of an interview undertaken in English with a 19 year old Serbian Australian with family in Sarajevo. The basis for the framework of interpretation was informed by philosophical hermeneutics in the Gadamerian tradition. The hallmark of Gadamer’s approach to interpretation is explicated as philosophical hermeneutics in his magnum opus Truth and Method. Hermeneutics emphasises the importance of language, and the way it is used to give and receive communications throughout time. That is, the activity of making interpretations through language is the very act of human understanding throughout life. Gadamer’s interpretation of language use must be alert to the possibility of statements reflecting critical and social structures that lie behind subjective taken-for-granted meanings in understanding.
