A humanistic working method

Abstract

Although a knowledge of the method of research involved is important in understanding the full implications of any study, it is even more essential when a humanistic approach is applied. The premises on which humanistic geography is based imply the application of a unique methodology which often becomes a topic of research in itself. Bearing this fact in mind, the author describes in this article, the metodology applied in his Doctorate Thesis entitled Humanistic Geography and Landscape. A Humanistic Interpretation of the Landscape of Garrotxa through Literature and five Environmental Experience Groups. A major part of this study involved a clearly phenomenological methodology which made it possible to explore the characteristics of lifeworld in relation to landscape, through the personalized interviewing of five environmental experience groups (summer holiday-makers, hikers, landscape painters, new rural-dwellers and farmers) in Garrotxa, a rural district in the province of Girona. It can also be stated that the method of investigation applied favours a better knowledge of the investigator's own existential landscape.