ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the meta-theoretical questions as regards the relation between the researcher and the subject of the research. A classic premise from Durkheim and forth that there are social processes which act behind our back and influence our everyday life in ways which are not directly visible or comprehensible. People have usually a good knowledge of the conditions of their everyday life and how to master everyday problems. The materialist approach to the relation between the social world and the understanding of it is that the understanding of it follows roughly the development of technologies and the structures in the organisation of society. Accordingly there is a certain predictable continuity in the development of human society and people in the same position and the same experiences will understand their situation in the same way.