Lived methodology: a situated discussion of 'truth and method' in interpretive information systems research

While interpretive information systems researchers are quick to reject normative accounts of managerial work in organisations, they have ignored a similar tendency in the research methodologies that they themselves present. By turning interpretive principles upon the IS field itself., this paper suggests that the prevailing norms and politics in IS interpretive research are obscuring the potential contribution of distributed, situated methodological knowledge. Furthermore, the emphasis on decontextualised axiomatic methodological principles tends to neutralise important issues about one’s role as a researcher, the status and nature of one’s research contribution, and the way in which both intervene in the world. The paper introduces the term ‘lived methodology’, inspired by work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, to explore this proposition and encourage researchers to colonise the philosophical middle ground of interpretevism in order to promote an academically grounded moral-practical dimension in their work.