Navigating the Boundaries of Understanding: Methodological Reflections on Cross-Cultural Challenges in Reconstructive Social Research

Abstract

Qualitative researchers often face ethical and practical challenges when engaging participants across linguistic and cultural boundaries. These challenges arise at various stages of the research process, from obtaining genuine informed consent and selecting appropriate interview languages to determining whether data should be analyzed in its original language or translated. However, interpretive and reconstructive approaches—aimed at analyzing the subjective, social, or latent meanings embedded in participants’ expressions—encounter the additional difficulty of deriving valid insights when interviewees and interpreters come from different experiential backgrounds or when data is collected in a language unfamiliar to the researcher. Drawing on the contradictory theoretical considerations of Alfred Schütz and Ulrich Oevermann regarding the understanding of the other and integrating these perspectives, this paper advocates for ongoing dialogue between external outsider viewpoints and the insider perspectives of culturally familiar co-interpreters, who can serve as reconstructive translators in the analysis. This paper draws on three case studies to illustrate how we addressed cross-cultural and cross-linguistic challenges in specific research settings. It concludes that while universal solutions are elusive, it is crucial to understand that, given the growing diversity of societies, cross-cultural challenges can arise even in research contexts not explicitly defined as cross-cultural. Therefore, it is essential that all research projects engage in a thorough reflection on positionality and the analytical standpoint. Based on this reflection and the insights that arise, researchers should formulate customized strategies to effectively navigate cross-cultural and cross-linguistic challenges in every reconstructive social research project.

Introduction

Qualitative social research is increasingly confronted with cross-cultural and cross-linguistic challenges, which manifest in crucial questions that must be addressed throughout different research phases: How can researchers ensure effective field access and ethically sound communication with participants in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic settings? In what languages should project information be disseminated? Are all participants adequately informed about the project to provide genuine informed consent? When it comes to data collection, particularly in interviews, it is essential to clarify in advance the interview language if it differs from the participants’ native languages—a consideration that we must account for in increasingly diverse societies. Should we conduct the interviews in the researchers’ language (even if it is a foreign language for the participants), or should we choose a lingua franca (a common language used for communication between people who do not share a native language) to bridge the gap between interviewers and interviewees? If the interviewees will be interviewed in their native language, will translators be necessary, or do we have research team members who are proficient in those languages? Each of these choices carry significant implications for analyzing the collected material: Does the material need to be translated, or can it be analyzed in its original form? What are the implications for the analysis if the material was translated from or not collected in the participants’ first language?

In fact, it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify research projects that remain completely unaffected by these and related questions, while the literature addressing these issues has also grown significantly in recent years (Choi et al., 2012; Niati, 2024; Pelzang & Hutchinson, 2018; Pinto Da Costa, 2021; Wutich et al., 2021). Existing studies examine the complexities and opportunities of cross-cultural research, with a focus on translation (e.g., Choi et al., 2012; Pinto Da Costa, 2021), cultural integrity (Pelzang & Hutchinson, 2018), and researcher positionality, often adopting postcolonial approaches to address power dynamics (Niati, 2024). Despite the diversity of these studies, it becomes clear that both the specific research questions and the applied methodologies shape the intensity with which research encounters cross-cultural challenges. While the pragmatic and ethical challenges associated with field access are prevalent across various qualitative and quantitative research designs, regardless of their specific methodologies, the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic challenges related to data collection and analysis affect different approaches to varying degrees. These approach-mediated differences are not only evident between quantitative and qualitative research, but also within the broad field of qualitative research itself. Within qualitative methodologies, the intensity of the challenges depends on what the analysis aims to examine: Is the emphasis placed on the substantive informational content of the data, as in various approaches to content analysis? Or does the analysis follow an interpretive paradigm, exploring experiential knowledge, patterns of understanding, or underlying structures of meaning?

From an interpretive standpoint, less-structured interviews with rather open questions are always preferable regarding data collection compared to highly structured interview guides, which are often used in content analysis studies. Less-structured interviews enable interviewees to provide detailed narratives and express their own priorities, which often promote the discovery of unexpected yet valuable themes and insights (Scheibelhofer, 2023). However, open forms typically demand greater expressive ability from interviewees compared to structured questions, meaning that conducting these interviews in their first language often results in richer content and helps interviewees feel more comfortable, ultimately enhancing both the research quality and its ethical integrity.

In terms of data analysis, a study employing content analysis is also less susceptible to cross-cultural and cross-language challenges compared to interpretive analyses. This is because content analysis focuses on identifying explicit themes within textual data, rather than extensively exploring the nuanced linguistic and contextual dimensions of meaning, the understanding of which is crucial for interpretive analyses—especially those using reconstructive methodologies (Bohnsack, 2010a; Oevermann et al., 1987; Wagner, 1999).

Interpretive and reconstructive analysis goes beyond just identifying what was said, and also focuses on uncovering the subjective, social, or objective meanings embedded within the expressions. Therefore, researchers conducting such analyses must skillfully navigate both the lexical definitions of terms as well as the subtleties of their usage and context-specific connotations. The latter is significantly more challenging in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic contexts than simply grasping the lexical meaning of a term. This raises the question of whether “interpretation” in this sense is even possible when the interviewee and interpreter come from different experiential backgrounds (Mijić, 2019).

This paper reflects on the key challenges of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic reconstructive research by exploring theoretical perspectives on cross-cultural understanding—both in everyday life and social analysis—and offers recommendations for addressing these challenges in interpretive research. These recommendations are informed by experiences from my research, which primarily focuses on processes of identity (re)construction—the interplay of self-perceptions and external perception, of identification, and external categorization—in times of crisis, particularly under conditions of war, postwar, migration, and forced migration (Mijić, 2020, 2022; Mijić et al., 2024). Using reconstructive methods, especially objective hermeneutics (Oevermann et al., 1987; Wernet, 2013) and the documentary method (Bohnsack, 2010a, 2010b), I empirically investigate the question of whether and how these crises affect people, whether and how they are expressed in specific life practices, and how they are managed within these practices. The subject itself regularly places my research and I in distinctly cross-cultural and cross-linguistic contexts.

In the first part of the article, I briefly discuss the particularities of reconstructive approaches—specifically of objective hermeneutics—within the broader field of qualitative social research, and outline the key challenges of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic reconstructive analyses. The next section focuses on cross-cultural understanding, both in everyday life and in scientific contexts. It will show that the distinction between intra-cultural research and cross-cultural research is ultimately fluid. The third section presents approaches from three research projects with specific cross-cultural dimensions, which are discussed in the conclusion.

Reconstructive Methodologies in Qualitative Research

When dealing with the challenges of qualitative social research in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic settings, it is essential to first recognize the diversity within qualitative methods. Some authors go so far as to say that what falls under the label of “qualitative social research” can hardly be unified, and that even the distinction between qualitative and quantitative is sometimes deceptive (Hitzler, 2007). This diversity is partly due to different histories of the development of qualitative social research in specific academic “cultures,” as Uwe Flick illustrates in his comparison of qualitative social research in Germany and the United States (Flick, 2005). This is reflected in, among other things, the use of certain terminologies: qualitative, interpretive, hermeneutic, or reconstructive. It is beyond the scope of this article to explore these facets in detail. However, providing some clarity regarding the use of different terminologies is nevertheless important. It seems reasonable to use “qualitative” as an “umbrella term” (Flick, 2005) that refers to any empirical research that does not focus on quantification in its analysis. The most commonly applied methods here are different forms of qualitative content analysis (Drisko & Maschi, 2015; Krippendorff, 2019; Mayring, 2022; Schreier, 2013). Approaches within the qualitative domain that aim to go beyond the substantive informational content of data, that is, beyond the manifest level, can be referred to as interpretive approaches (Endress, 2013; Rosenthal, 2018). The essence of interpretive approaches is less about elucidating what was said and more about how something was said, thereby attempting to discover why it was articulated in that specific manner and not otherwise. Within interpretive sociology, there is broad consensus that social reality is meaningfully constructed, and that social research should focus on analyzing this meaningful structure of social reality. However, especially within the German-speaking context, there is significant debate over where the analysis should begin, how far it should extend, and what constitutes an acceptable analysis (Hitzler, 2007, p. 18). Ultimately, the question revolves around which “dimension of meaning” is central: the subjective (intended), social, objective, or documentary meaning. Within this field of interpretive approaches, methods that aim to go beyond the intended meaning can be referred to as reconstructive. They seek to reconstruct either historically or socially typical interpretive work, such as in knowledge sociological discourse analysis (Keller, 2011, 2013), the documentary method (Bohnsack, 2010a, 2010b), and the hermeneutic sociology of knowledge (Reichertz, 2013; Soeffner, 1997, 2004), or they aim to reconstruct structures that generate interpretations and actions, as in the case of objective hermeneutics (Franzmann, 2022; Maiwald, 2005; Oevermann et al., 1987; Wernet, 2013). Methodologically, objective hermeneutics posits that social actions or a specific life practice are generated by principles that are not directly perceptible. However, they are reflected in the documented reality, the “protocol” of a social reality (e.g., an interview transcript), from which they can then be inferred or extracted. Objective hermeneutics aims to uncover the “how”—the latent structures of meaning in their relation to the manifest level. In terms of identity, objective hermeneutics is not only concerned with how people describe or present themselves, nor is identity understood as being determined by a latent meaning structure that evades the actors’ awareness and contradicts their self-understanding. Rather, identity is characterized by the case-specific tension that arises between these two levels of meaning (Silkenbeumer & Wernet, 2010). The key strength of objective hermeneutics in my research is its ability to reveal how identity is created in this interplay between the latent and the manifest.

Adherence to certain rules is necessary to elucidate the latent structure of meaning underlying the protocol of a life practice—four principles derived from the foundational assumptions of the methodology. The central principle is sequentiality, which dictates that data should be interpreted strictly in the order of its occurrence. While this principle is primarily based on Oevermann’s work (Oevermann et al., 1979), it is also employed in other interpretive approaches (Bohnsack, 2010a; Keller, 2011; Rosenthal, 2004). This highlights a notable distinction from non-interpretive qualitative methods, like different types of content analysis that search texts for specific elements. In an objective hermeneutical analysis, the protocol should not be searched and exploited based on specific thematic content; rather, it must strictly follow the progression of the protocol (step-by-step) (Maiwald, 2005; Wernet, 2013). This is rooted in the methodological assumption of the sequentiality of social life practices, implying that all manifestations of human practice are structured or constituted by sequentiality (Oevermann, 2000, p. 64). Oevermann does not simply use the term “sequentiality of life practices” to refer to a temporal succession or spatial coexistence of social actions. Instead, the term expresses the idea that every course of action is both a closure of previously opened possibilities and a simultaneous opening of a new range of action options (Oevermann, 2000, p. 64). A case structure, placed at the center of the analytical focus of objective hermeneutics, is created by selecting certain options in a typical and characteristic manner, that is, in a recognizable way, while leaving out or not realizing other options in a characteristic way (Oevermann, 1991, p. 280). Furthermore, achieving the reconstruction of the case structure requires analyzing the respective sequence in its totality (principle of extensivity) (Wernet, 2013). This means that no element of text segments to be analyzed should be disregarded (Oevermann, 2000, p. 100ff.). This is closely connected to the principle of a verbatim approach, which is grounded in the methodological assumption of the textuality of social reality and methodically addresses the claim of objective hermeneutics to reconstruct latent meaning structures (Wernet, 2013, pp. 240–241). It obliges interpreters to take the text literally: The interpreters should not be guided by the question of what, for example, an interviewee wanted to say; it’s not about the intended meaning, but rather about what they actually said. The difference between these two questions becomes evident in cases of grammatical deviations or slips of the tongue. Systemically differentiating as well as utilizing latent and manifest levels of meaning in case reconstructions requires a consistent alignment with the text’s meaning rather than focusing on what someone intentionally wanted to convey. This is the only way to achieve the primary aim of objective hermeneutic interpretation: the reconstruction of “latent meaning structures” in texts. This adheres to a core principle of scientific inquiry: While the validity of assumptions regarding someone’s intended meaning remains unverifiable, the text itself serves as a reliable foundation for critiques and validation of interpretations. This contributes to the “objective” nature of interpretations within objective hermeneutics. An interpretation can only be considered intersubjectively comprehensible when it is rigorously derived from a “fixed text as a precise record of interaction” accessible to all interpreters, as “a basis of scientific dispute” (Wernet, 2013, p. 236). The principle of the literality/verbatim approach will be particularly challenging to uphold when interpreting the text within its context. Therefore, another principle of objective hermeneutics is the exclusion of the context (Wernet, 2013, pp. 239–240), which aims to eliminate efforts to clarify the meaning of a text through contextual information. The approach involves interpreting a sequence independently, before factoring in the specific situation where a sentence was spoken. The contextualization occurs after the text’s initial context-free interpretation and this systematic process helps to make an analytical distinction between the inherent meaning of a text and its meaning within a particular context.

Following these principles, the interpretation is then carried out in a two-step process—ideally within interpretation groups by means of which the subjective perspectivity of individual researchers can be further balanced (Oevermann et al., 1979). Firstly, social contexts are identified through gedanken experimentation where the passage to be interpreted makes sense. Secondly, these different scenarios are then examined for their commonalities and differences, resulting in various potential readings (Maiwald, 2005; Wernet, 2013). Once a repeatedly emerging pattern becomes apparent, the interpretation of that sequence can end, and a hypothesis regarding the underlying structure can be formulated. A structure hypothesis serves as an initial provisional answer to the research question, subject to further validation through additional sequence analyses.

It is neither feasible nor necessary to analyze the entire interview this way. Because small fragments of a text can represent broader aspects of social reality, it is therefore justifiable to focus only on selected passages. Just as a person’s habitus is an evident modus operandi in all their activities, the underlying structure of a text is expressed in every segment (Wernet, 2013, p. 243). From my own research and teaching experiences, the more consistently these principles are applied, the less text is needed to reach a well-founded structural hypothesis.

However, examining these principles requires asking whether such a methodological approach can even be pursued in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic settings. What happens to the principle of sequentiality when dealing with translations where sentences had to be “rearranged” to meet the grammatical requirements of the target language? Does the principle of literalness lose its significance when the passages to be interpreted have first undergone a translation, which always involves a selection among various options? How meaningful is adhering to the principle of literalness when specific grammatical errors are present in an interview conducted with individuals outside of their first language?

In this paper, I argue that while an objective hermeneutic interpretation in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic settings is more challenging, it is not impossible. However, it will typically be necessary to interpret more data in these specific settings; for example, to determine whether certain grammatical inconsistencies indeed arise because individuals do not speak in their first language or if they result from a specific underlying meaning structure. Furthermore, cultural differences between the interviewee and the researchers might require interpreting more data because some meanings might be overlooked, that is, not all potential readings for each small passage may be exhaustively formulated. Extensivity or totality implies both considering everything expressed in a passage and encompassing all possible interpretations as long as they are not explicitly excluded by the text itself (Wernet, 2013). Achieving such an exhaustive interpretation is considerably more challenging in a cross-cultural setting, where the question arises: Considering the diverse experiential backgrounds of interviewees and interpreters, as well as the data being in a different language, how can researchers arrive at valid insights (Reichertz, 2016, p. 249)?

The following shows that this question is not exclusive to research explicitly identified as cross-cultural. Intra-cultural and cross-cultural distinctions must be viewed as a spectrum, ranging from complete alignment between researchers and participants to absolute unfamiliarity (Mijić, 2019). However, achieving either extreme is unlikely. The following discussion aims to shed light on this, examining the differentiation between scientific understanding and everyday comprehension.

On the Issue of Cross-Cultural Understanding

As everyday individuals, we assume that we understand our counterparts and that they understand what we want to express. This assumption is typically not further questioned, except in situations of obvious misunderstanding. However, it is a simplification intrinsic to human communication. Epistemologically speaking, understanding others is a fundamentally precarious act. Engaging with Max Weber’s concept of understanding, Alfred Schütz addresses the inherent problem of understanding others (Fremdverstehen) in all communication processes. He contends the subjective or intended meaning that an individual associates with an action can only be determined under the condition of the complete knowledge of their experiential horizon, ultimately achievable only with the complete identity of two individuals. The meaning I attribute to my counterpart deviates from the meaning they associate with their action because understanding of the other is based on my experiences of the other. According to Schütz, “all genuine understanding of the other person must start out from acts of explication performed by the observer on his own lived experience” (Schütz, 1972, p. 113). The other can only be understood by translating the communicated information into one’s own relevance system. Therefore, the subjective meaning “remains at best a limiting concept” (Schütz, 1972, p. 98). Nevertheless, according to Schütz, everyday “understanding” is achievable. It is enabled by “two pragmatically motivated basic constructions, or idealizations” (Schütz & Luckmann, 1973, p. 60) summarized in the “general thesis of reciprocity of perspectives:” the idealization of the interchangeability of standpoints and the congruence of relevance systems. The first idealization assumes that if I were in my counterpart’s position, “I would experience things in the same perspective, distance, and reach” as they do, and vice versa (Schütz & Luckmann, 1973, p. 60). The second idealization postulates that the other interprets the world similarly to oneself, and that differences arising from respective biographical situations are “irrelevant for (…) present practical goals” (Schütz & Luckmann, 1973, p. 60). Without this pragmatically motivated, idealizing attitude, communication would hardly be possible. However, presupposing intersubjectivity in communication requires at least a basic agreement in relevance and interpretive frameworks (Schröer, 2007, p. 213). This means that the success of an interaction based on these idealizations depends on how much the interactants can draw upon shared knowledge and institutionalized, traditional cultural patterns. Understanding the other is thus facilitated by the interactants sharing similar general relevance systems and interactive frameworks, which have been internalized through socialization processes. Conversely, the challenges of understanding the other increase as fewer common grounds are available for the interactants to rely on—making it significantly more difficult to maintain the general thesis of reciprocity of perspectives.

Schütz reflects upon these processes in his social-psychological essay on The Stranger, where he studies “the typical situation” in which strangers find themselves in their “attempt to interpret the cultural pattern of a social group” which they approache and to orient themselves within it (Schütz, 1944, p. 499). Since understanding others always relies on self-interpretation, the stranger has no choice but to rely upon their own cultural interpretation patterns (along with preconceived notions about the new group) in their attempt to understand the other:

To the stranger, the cultural pattern of [their] home group continues to be the outcome of an unbroken historical development and an element of [their] personal biography which for this very reason has been and still is the unquestioned scheme of reference for [their] ‘relatively natural conception of the world.’ As a matter of course, therefore, the stranger starts to interpret [their] new social environment in terms of [their] thinking as usual. Within the scheme of reference brought from [their] home group, however, [the stranger] finds a ready-made idea of the pattern supposedly valid within the approached group—an idea which necessarily will soon prove inadequate. (Schütz, 1944, p. 502)

The stranger will slowly internalize the new cultural patterns so that they become “a matter of course, an unquestionable lifestyle, shelter, and protection” (Schütz, 1944, p. 507). Schütz compares the process of adopting new cultural patterns to learning a foreign language and illustrates the problems that the stranger faces in understanding their new environment through the distinction between passive language understanding, characterized by learned linguistic symbols and syntactic rules, and active mastery, which requires more than grammatical knowledge and an adequate vocabulary (Schütz, 1944, p. 505). However, cross-cultural contact is not always about a stranger who “comes today and stays tomorrow” (Simmel, 1950) or a stranger’s assimilation into the new culture, which Schütz primarily addresses. Even in less-permanent relationships between strangers, there should be an opportunity for an interactive alignment of perspectives. This would allow for the assumption of reciprocity to happen again, as Norbert Schröer points out in his reflections on the challenges of qualitative research in cross-cultural settings. Individuals fundamentally have the chance, through the mutual reflection of their viewpoints, to pragmatically distinguish, adjust, and harmonize their orientations. This process typically enables a successful adoption of intersubjectivity, facilitating coordinated actions. This potential for cross-cultural understanding also forms the basis for a scientific hermeneutic of the other (Schröer, 2007, p. 215).

At this point, an interim conclusion is that understanding others is a fundamental challenge due to different knowledge bases and experiential horizons or the undeniable structural inequality of human experiences. In fact, the perfect agreement of relevance systems is rarely achieved—even intra-culturally (Shimada, 2007, p. 121). However, cross-cultural understanding is further complicated, since the general thesis of reciprocity of perspectives is typically more challenging to maintain, as the intersection of common cultural interpretation patterns is much smaller. The general boundary between intra- and cross-cultural communication is thus fluid, resembling a scale marked on each end by “complete understanding” or “radical unfamiliarity” (Shimada, 2007, p. 120), with neither extreme likely to be fully realized in practice. These thoughts also apply to the scientific understanding of the foreign.

On the Scientific Understanding of the Other

Competent social scientific understanding requires interpreters to possess sufficient knowledge of the culture they are hermeneutically approaching, as interpretation is derived from this knowledge. However, as discussed in relation to everyday understanding, no clear-cut boundary exists between understanding one’s own culture and cross-cultural understanding. Hence, researchers may even encounter cultural patterns that do not align with their own in contexts not defined as cross-cultural. Discussing cross-cultural research often implies that culture is a unified entity, which can lead to essentialization and homogenization (Reichertz, 2007, p. 18). This echoes criticisms of “methodological nationalism:” The tendency to interpret social, political, and economic phenomena exclusively within a nation-state context, which often presupposes a uniform culture within its boundaries. This perspective tends to neglect the nuanced diversity within the nation state and disregards shared elements that extend beyond national borders (Wimmer & Glick Schiller, 2002). Therefore research should question the level of congruence between the researchers’ cultures and those being researched throughout every research process. When no linguistic translation is (or seems to be) necessary, potential divergences may be more conveniently overlooked. Such disregard is harder when language barriers emerge, compelling researchers to grapple with the intricate cross-cultural challenges inherent to interpretive research. However, even if linguistic translations are unnecessary because we assume our mastery of the collected data language, the translation problem may remain concealed on a different level: For example, excellent English skills, or even being “English,” do not guarantee an active knowledge of the cultural patterns of, for instance, the British “high society.” The fluid boundaries between intra-cultural and cross-cultural research, should encourage a more intensive reflection on research that is initially classified as intra-cultural, rather than dismissing the specific challenges inherent to cross-cultural research.

Oevermann, whose objective hermeneutics is applied in the research projects addressed in this article, is criticized for overlooking these challenges in various cross-cultural and cross-language studies (Dersch & Oevermann, 1994; Oevermann, 2001, 2008). Reichertz (2007), for instance, refers a study (Dersch & Oevermann, 1994) that draws on an interview with a Tunisian farmer that underwent a six-stage translation process before the interpretation even began (Reichertz, 2007, p. 19). When reflecting upon cross-cultural research, Oevermann notes that it is always preferable to analyze data in its original language. However, if this is not feasible—for example, due to a lack of language proficiency—translations must be taken “consistently and stubbornly literally” (Oevermann, 2008, p. 151; translated by the author) and treated like primary texts. The interpretation should not be constantly relativized based on a generalized suspicion of translation errors, since “if the translation is actually incorrect or skewed, you will only notice that if you treat it in detail like an original text and under the somehow artificially naive assumption that it is internally consistent like a native datum” (Oevermann, 2008, p. 151; translated by the author).

This might seem like a strategy for addressing the translation problem by disregarding it. However, Oevermann’s approach is ultimately rooted in his trust of the methodological procedure of objective hermeneutics. Adhering strictly to the principles of hermeneutic interpretation in the analysis would identify a translation discrepancy, whereas presuming that the translation could be flawed would not yield any additional benefits. If the analysis revealed a discrepancy, the original material could be revisited to discern potential alternative translations and how they might influence the interpretation.

Beyond considering how translations may impede the interpretive analysis, another issue concerns aligning the cultural repertoires of the researcher and the research participants. While cross-cultural research is generally assumed to be particularly challenging in this regard, Oevermann asserts that cross-cultural understanding of the other does not pose a special challenge to the social or experiential sciences. In fact, cross-cultural settings might even be advantageous, since the foreign is hermeneutically easier to understand than the familiar (Oevermann, 2001, p. 79, 2008, p. 147). This assumption is rooted in Oevermann’s analytical differentiation between “practical” understanding (pertaining to everyday life) and “methodical” understanding (related to scientific inquiry): The familiar being easier to understand than the unfamiliar only holds true to the practical understanding of everyday life, where the primary challenge in understanding the other lies in overcoming the “historical distance” (Oevermann, 2008, p. 147) to the object. In the realm of methodical understanding, which seeks to go beyond the manifest level and reconstruct what lies beneath, however, prior knowledge acts as an “obstructive veil” in front of the object of understanding. Interpretation would require carefully removing one’s obstructive veil and setting aside their everyday pragmatic understanding to question what is actually expressed. Therefore, Oevermann argues that the foreign presents a relatively minor obstacle for methodical understanding because, from the outset, there would be no pre-existing knowledge facilitating practical understanding. Consequently,

there would be no need to remove an obstructive veil to achieve artificial naivety, but—by drawing on the universals of linguistically mediated reconstruction of meaning and ‘mundane reasoning’—the objective meaning structure of the expressions of the foreign must be patiently uncovered without shortcutting through prior knowledge. This involves doing something that, when understanding the familiar, seems unnecessary to most proponents of competing interpretive methods in social research, given the already existing practical familiarity with the subject matter. (Oevermann, 2008, p. 147).

Oevermann differentiates between scientific understanding and understanding in everyday life more fundamentally than Schütz. Although the latter significantly focuses on the situational differences in relevance (a practically interested everyday person vs. a practically disinterested, detached observer), Schütz’ underlying assumption is that the processes of understanding in both everyday life and science share a structural similarity (Endress, 2006, p. 41) and that it is difficult to draw sharp boundaries between these realms (Schütz, 1972, p. 220ff.).

It is undisputed that interpreters should set aside their prior knowledge and their derived assumptions during the interpretation; only this can establish a necessary distance from the research subject. It is, however, questionable if the real lack of knowledge that Oevermann considers desirable (Oevermann, 2001, p. 80) is equivalent to distancing. It appears much more evident to understand distancing as a process of consciously, critically distancing oneself from—if not the familiar—then at least the known. In this sense, artificial naivety in the context of an interpretive process should not mean “natural unknowing.” However, my own experience also indicates some validity to Oevermann’s argument.

While group interpretations where all participants speak the material language as a second or third language and do not share the interviewee’s cultural background can be challenging and often inefficient, group interpretations in mixed teams of natives and non-natives have proven to be quite effective. This effectiveness arises because the intrinsic knowledge of the linguistic and cultural natives is constantly challenged by the precise inquiries of the non-natives, who seek to understand why a statement seems meaningful in one context but not in another (Schütz, 1944). By posing questions, the non-natives pull aside the “obstructive veil” in front of the object of understanding and, accordingly, contribute significantly to a well-founded, objective hermeneutic analysis. Benefitting from this multiperspective approach requires both permitting this dynamic and, crucially, ensuring that no power imbalance is established or perpetuated—between those with a stronger comprehension and those who question the interpretations for clarification. Both sides must be considered equal and essential contributors to the analysis. This approach has yielded positive results in all three of the following research projects.

Navigating Cross-Cultural Challenges: Insights from the Research Practice

In my research, I have oriented myself to Oevermann’s proposals; more specifically: (1) When working with translations, we initially treated them as primary data. However, when unresolvable interpretations arose, we reverted to the original, untranslated material, because the translation had clearly introduced a distortion. Moreover, I considered it essential to at least verify the case structure hypothesis against the original material. (2) In alignment with Oevermann, I also regarded the distanced perspective of non-native speakers and non-cultural natives as an advantage rather than a hindrance in the process, as long as this perspective remained in dialogue with culturally familiar interpreters. To facilitate this dialogue, methodological considerations developed by other researchers who address the challenges of cross-cultural research became relevant for me. In particular, I followed Schröer, who developed a method for cross-cultural analysis in police interrogations (Reichertz & Schröer, 2003; Schröer, 2002, 2007). He emphasizes the need for culturally familiar co-interpreters and states that interpreters “adapt” cultural interpretations from one culture to another and must possess deep, practical knowledge of both cultures and the ability to construct relevant analogies between them (Schröer, 2007).

The following section discusses three research projects where cross-cultural challenges emerged with a common theme of investigating identity constructions during times of crises, specifically within the contexts of war and (forced) migration. Building on a knowledge-sociological theoretical framework, all three projects pursued a reconstructive analysis of how these crises impact people’s lived experiences and how they cope with the challenges. The first two projects used a methodology that relied on Oevermann’s approach, entailing an objectively hermeneutic interpretation of narrative in-depth interviews (Schütze, 1976). The third project combined objective hermeneutics with the documentary analysis, utilizing group discussions as the primary data source (Bohnsack, 2010a, 2010b). The following discussion illustrates how the way that culturally familiar co-interpreters are involved is influenced by the specific context and its related cross-cultural challenges. In any case, it is essential to reflect on potential underlying power dynamics in the interpretation process, as well as the positionality of all researchers involved in order to recognize the biases and limitations of one’s approach.

Identity Transformation in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina

As part of a research project on identity-related transformation processes in postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina, I collected narrative interviews in different regions of the country between 2007 and 2009. My family’s Bosnian background meant I, as a researcher, was much more familiar with the language and culture than it is typically assumed in cross-cultural research. Hence, when gaining access to the field, I did not encounter any significant language barriers, the interviews were conducted in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS), and their (untranslated) transcripts formed the basis for interpretation.

Cross-cultural challenges emerged, nevertheless, due to several factors: (1) As a researcher based in Austria, it was not pragmatically feasible to organize interpretation groups exclusively with native BCS speakers. As a result, some material had to be translated into German to facilitate group interpretations, which, as previously mentioned, play a crucial role in the success of a reconstructive analysis. (2) The findings were predominantly published in German and English, necessitating translations no later than the dissemination stage. (3) Finally and most critically: I never lived in Bosnia; I grew up in Germany as the child of Bosnian-Croatian parents. Consequently, I have been co-socialized by the German educational system and the cultural environment in which I lived. This also means that I was spared the direct experience of the war, which was ultimately the central focus of my research project.

I applied the following strategies to address these challenges: (1) Translations that served as the basis for group interpretation resulted from collaborative efforts where I personally translated selected sequences, typically in collaboration with at least one additional native speaker. This was advantageous because I was familiar with challenging passages, such as those lacking unambiguous translations. This knowledge could then be taken into account during the interpretation session. (2) The challenges I encountered during the translation process were transparently addressed in the publications. In a German-language monograph (Mijić, 2014), the quoted passages appear in their original language in the footnotes, with explicit attention drawn to ambiguities. The relatively limited length of journal publications rarely allow for such duplication. However, since including these interview quotes primarily illustrate the results (a full reconstructive analysis would far exceed the 8,000-word limit), I do not consider this as a significant issue. More importantly: (3) During the group interpretations, we followed Oevermann’s approach to largely avoid including the original material. In some instances, especially at the outset of each session, interpreters were even unaware that the material was translated. If the interpretation did not suggest any translation distortion, I only verified its alignment with the original material myself after the group interpretation sessions. If, however, tensions arose during interpretation or if we focused on passages with challenging translations, we incorporated the original material during the sessions and I personally took on the role of the culturally familiar co-interpreter in the sense of Schröer, given my essential competencies. However, while Schröer anticipates a bias towards the “culture of origin”—in my case, Bosnian—this particular instance clearly revealed that I was more biased towards the “receiving culture.” To counterbalance this bias, I involved further cultural native co-interpreters whenever feasible. Although I rarely encountered such instances in practice, it was vital to not dismiss them lightly. Instead, it was important to engage in an honest and self-reflective exploration of my positionality, acknowledging the inherent limitations of understanding, and thereby expanding the boundaries of comprehension.

These challenges related to language, positionality, and translation not only shaped the interpretation of identity transformations in postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina, but also played a significant role in how I approached the research on postwar diaspora identities, where issues of multilingualism and shifting cultural contexts took on even greater complexity.

Postwar Diaspora(s)

The Postwar Diaspora(s) research project centers on a reconstructive analysis of identity constructions among Bosnian diasporas in Austria. It investigated how the experiences of war and migration manifest in people’s everyday lives. This was accomplished by conducting narrative interviews and subsequently examining them through an objective hermeneutic analysis. Material from this project was available in different languages, as interviewees chose the language in which they felt most comfortable:

a. Interviewees who arrived in Austria from Bosnia-Herzegovina during childhood or were born in Austria to Bosnian parents chose German as the interview language. Despite BCS technically being their first language, they spoke German at the native level. Their awareness of my BCS proficiency led to frequent, brief language switches; for instance, proverbs, idioms, and kinship terms were often expressed in BCS, along with war-related terms like sniper (snajper) or trench (rov). These highlighted how language is intertwined with specific realms of experience. In research that navigates the boundaries of different experiential and linguistic spaces, like this postwar diaspora project, language shifts are not simply challenges to manage, but entry points that enable truly accessing these experiences, both during the interviews and in the subsequent analysis. This was also evident when conducting interviews in BCS.

b. Individuals who arrived in Austria as adults and learned German as a second or third language mostly chose BCS as the interview language. Following the approach from the Identity Transformation in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina project, the material was transcribed in its original language, and selected excerpts were translated into German for interpretation groups or into English for publications. Unlike the interviews from the Identity Transformation project, these interviews were characterized by language shifts from BCS to German, particularly when discussing the diaspora experience. German terms like Gastarbeiter (guest worker) or Ausländer (foreigner) are often adopted in BCS spelling or pronunciation and grammatically adjusted, becoming Gastarbajteri or Auslenderi. As outlined in (a), these shifts represented distinct experiential realms and were therefore vital for the analysis. However, it was especially interesting that the interviewees considered it necessary to not only explain nuances from Bosnian society, but of Austrian society, which had again very much to do with my positionality. My upbringing in Germany and German-specific accent made interviewees perceive me as an outsider rather than an Austrian insider. Incorporating this perspective systemically into the analysis enabled a far more nuanced exploration of how participants self-positioned themselves than a context where I was solely perceived as a complete Austrian insider and/or a Bosnian insider could have, which Dahinden et al. (2021) also highlight in the Swiss context.

c. The most significant challenge in terms of objective hermeneutic analysis arose from interviews conducted in German when interviewees had not reached native-level proficiency. Some participants who came to Austria as young adults chose to do the interview in German despite not speaking it at a native level. Although this only applied to a few interviewees within the Postwar Diaspora(s) project, I consider this particular constellation to be of outstanding relevance for reconstructive social research because societies are diverse, and multilingualism is a central expression of this societal diversity. To avoid systematically excluding individuals from reconstructive research, because our research language is not their first language or spoken as one, we must engage with methodological questions about multilingualism in every research context. When our primary focus is the interview’s substantive content, like some forms of content analysis, the fact that individuals speak with an accent, occasionally misuse words, or make grammatical errors does not present a significant challenge. However, within hermeneutic methods, which are inherently language-bound, these linguistic considerations become decisive, as literalness and sequentiality are essential to the analysis process. This does not imply that such material cannot be hermeneutically analyzed, but rather that more time and material are needed to establish a valid case structure hypothesis. The experience gained from analyzing such material indicates that grammatical errors do not typically appear in isolation, but manifest repeatedly, and even exhibit discernible patterns that a rigorous, objective hermeneutic analysis can identify. After identifying such a pattern, these “missteps” can be separated from the material like a transparent overlay and must no longer be considered throughout the interpretation and when formulating the case structure hypothesis. Knowing both languages facilitates a quicker recognition of these patterns (e.g., knowing that “forest” in BCS is feminine (šuma) and not masculine like in German (der Wald)). Importantly, however, the principle of literalness should not be dismissed, even if the spoken language seems faulty or because we believe that the interviewee meant something else. Instead, the spoken words should be strictly adhered to, even if they sound flawed, because they can reveal clues for identifying latent meaning structures.

Compared to the previously described projects, where I had direct access to the original materials, the project on forced migration from Ukraine highlighted the unique challenges that arise when access to the original material is not possible, emphasizing the critical role of culturally sensitive translations and co-interpreting team members.

Experiencing Forced Migration from Ukraine

The transdisciplinary multi-method project, The Art of Arriving, explored the transformative potential of art for the sociology of migration through close collaboration between artists and sociologists (Mijić & Parzer, 2022). Part of the project involved organizing group discussions with people who had experienced displacement to understand the crises they faced upon arrival and how they managed them. These discussions were analyzed using the documentary method informed by objective hermeneutics (Kramer, 2015) to identify the conjunctive experiential space. Nine group discussions took place with individuals who had fled Ukraine, just a few weeks before the interviews took place (Mijić et al., 2024). This made conducting the interviews in German unviable, while using English as a lingua franca seemed neither beneficial for the research nor ethically appropriate. Additional project funding enabled us to hire two more team members with Ukrainian backgrounds, who prepared the interviews, conducted them in Russian or Ukrainian, transcribed the conversations, and translated them into English. As a team member who spoke neither Russian nor Ukrainian, I was—unlike in the previously described projects—unable to work with the original material. For the first time, this revealed to me the full extent of the significant role played by sensitive translations and culturally familiar co-interpreters. The Ukrainian team members thoroughly annotated the translations, especially where different translations were possible, and noted language switches. In this case, the translation itself can be considered as one part of the first step in the documentary analysis—the formulative interpretation (Schittenhelm, 2017). The reconstructive analysis then happened in the second step—the reflective interpretation (Bohnsack, 2010a). The two Ukrainian staff members were significantly involved in this reconstructive analysis, allowing us to refer back to the original material when interpretation issues arose during group interpretations. The results were rechecked against the original material in every instance. My being unable to work with the original material underscored the importance of an intensive and critical dialogue between the project’s cultural natives, who had unique access to the material and the lifeworld of the subjects due to their shared experience of forced displacement, and those researchers who lacked this access but could therefore more easily adopt the position of detached observers.

Conclusion

This paper reflects on the key challenges of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic reconstructive research and offers recommendations for addressing these challenges at different stages of the research process—recommendations that can undoubtedly be applied to qualitative methodologies more broadly and thereby contribute to the rigor and quality of qualitative research in general. However, as the paper demonstrates, interpretive and reconstructive approaches are uniquely affected by cross-cultural and cross-linguistic challenges in ways that differ significantly from those encountered by qualitative methods that focus, for instance, on the manifest informational content of data. These challenges arise primarily from the focus on analyzing meaning—whether subjective, social, or objective—which necessitates addressing how valid insights can be achieved when navigating the diverse experiential backgrounds of interviewees and interpreters, as well as the complexities of working with data in a different language.

The first section of the paper outlines the specific characteristics of reconstructive approaches within the broader context of qualitative social research, focusing on objective hermeneutics (Oevermann et al., 1987). It examines the methodological foundations and key principles of objective hermeneutical interpretation—such as sequentiality, literalness, and extensiveness—and addresses the question of whether it is even possible to fully adhere to these principles in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic contexts.

By particularly drawing on Alfred Schütz’s theoretical reflections on cross-cultural understanding in everyday life and scientific contexts (Schütz, 1944, 1972; Schütz & Luckmann, 1973), the article argues that the distinction between intra-cultural and cross-cultural research is fluid. While Schütz argues that everyday and scientific understanding are not impossible in cross-cultural contexts but certainly more challenging, Oevermann contends that, from a methodological perspective, turning to the unfamiliar can even be seen as advantageous—researchers do not have to artificially set aside their everyday assumptions to reconstruct latent meaning (Oevermann, 2001, 2008). This paper posits that the truth lies somewhere in the middle: While outsider perspectives can indeed help uncover what lies beneath the manifest, it is also necessary to engage these perspectives in an ongoing and equal dialogue with culturally familiar co-interpreters, who act as “reconstructive translators” (Schröer, 2007, p. 222), adapting the interpretive patterns of one culture to another.

The third part of the article presents three projects that applied reconstructive approaches and highlights how cross-cultural and cross-linguistic challenges manifested differently as well as how they were addressed in each case. It is difficult to draw generalizable conclusions for qualitative research from these case studies, as the appropriate strategy depends on multiple factors—especially the focus of the investigation (am I interested in what was explicitly said in an interview, or in the latent meaning structures behind it?) and particularly the researchers’ own positionalities.

Rather than aiming for a “one-size-fits-all” strategy, the central contribution of this paper is its recognition that intra-cultural and cross-cultural understanding exist on a spectrum. This insight arises from integrating theoretical considerations and case studies, which together highlight that the extremes—complete alignment between researchers and participants at one end and total unfamiliarity at the other—are unlikely to ever be empirically reached. This implies that there is no sharp boundary between understanding one’s own culture and engaging in cross-cultural understanding, nor is there a clear-cut distinction between “insider” and “outsider,” which would rigidly determine who is qualified or permitted to conduct specific research. However, this realization should not lead us to downplay cross-cultural and cross-linguistic challenges. Instead, it should encourage us to acknowledge that even in research contexts not explicitly defined as cross-cultural, researchers should expect to encounter cross-cultural challenges. Given the growing diversity of our societies—sometimes described as “super-diverse” (Crul, 2016)—researchers cannot restrict their focus to more easily accessible groups like the middle class, nor can they exclude individuals from studies simply because they do not share a common first language.

In light of this insight, reflecting on potential cross-cultural and cross-linguistic challenges should be an integral part of the planning phase for all qualitative research projects. Researchers should consider, for example, whether translation services will be needed due to linguistic boundaries being crossed, or whether culturally familiar co-interpreters are necessary in the case of interpretive and reconstructive research, given that the research field may not be sufficiently familiar to the core researchers. To identify potential challenges and understand the needs involved, researchers must engage in a thorough reflection of their own positionalities, as congruence or incongruence can only be accurately assessed when the standpoint from which the analysis is conducted is clearly acknowledged. Only through such reflection can tailored strategies be developed to address cross-cultural and cross-linguistic challenges throughout the research process. However, these strategies must remain flexible enough to allow researchers to respond to emerging challenges as the project unfolds. Situational reflection is crucial, as insider–outsider positionalities can shift over time (Carling et al., 2014). In ideal cases, any limitations to one’s own understanding can be offset by the presence of culturally familiar co-researchers, but this is often not a feasible solution. In such situations, transparency becomes critical—researchers must confront their own potential biases. This transparency is not only important for the researchers but can also significantly enhance the overall quality of qualitative social research.