Hermeneutical interpretations in ethnographies of Innovations: from new ideas to social innovations

Abstract

"By using the example of spatial pioneers from civil society, who are committed to the field of social urban development in Berlin Moabit, the article introduces hermeneutical interpretation methods for analyzing the communicative genesis of social innovations in their initial phases. Under the umbrella of focused ethnography participant observations, problem-centered interviews, qualitative network, as well as documents and discourse analyses are triangulated. In terms of data analysis, apart from procedures of grounded theory, in innovation literature hardly proven hermeneutical interpretation methods are deployed: sociological hermeneutics and the analysis of communication genres." (author's abstract)