Hermeneutic phenomenological data representation: portraying the Ineffable

This paper takes a look at how we may represent the ineffable domains of aesthetic and soda/life in ways sympathetic to their nature. Max Van Manen's (1990) hermeneutic phenomenological approach is used as a window of theory in this endeavour. From exploring Manen's notion of 'lived experience', it is highlighted that, since the essences of aesthetic and social phenomena often reside in experiential, abstract and immaterial spheres of 'knowing·, the way we present such research findings to the outsider might be deepened by using creative writing that reverberates the phenomenon, rather than, or in addition to, simply using traditional reporting. residing largely in conceptualisation and facts'. This paper concludes that the developed post modem understonding of how to collect qualitative and quantitative data in ways loyal to their respective nature, is only now beginning to manifest widely in how to present such data, and that Manen's approach is an important contribution to this process.