ABSTRACT
Amedeo Giorgi stresses that the phenomenological reduction demands that the researcher bracket "past knowledge about the phenomenon encountered, in order to be fully present to it as it is in the concrete situation in which one is encountering it". For Giorgi, the task of bracketing does not mean removing all past knowledge. Rather, it involves putting aside or rendering non-influential this knowledge. The point of "coming back to" the phenomenological material using theories is to acknowledge that the work of a researcher is to contribute to ongoing theorizing. Phenomenological researchers have tended to use the technique of bracketing, which, stems from Husserl's philosophical notion of the phenomenological reduction. Social scientists created controlled experiments that set out to test theories, explain phenomena, and predict what might happen in given situations. Interpretive phenomenologists assume that it not only is impossible to avoid bringing theoretical assumptions to the work of qualitative research, but it is also undesirable to avoid theory.
