The Lived Meaning of Free Choice: An Existential-Phenomenological Description of Everyday Consumer Experiences of Contemporary Married Women

Abstract

An existential-phenomenological description of everyday consumer experiences of contemporary married women with children is offered. An idiographic case study provides a thick description of this phenomenon and illustrates the hermeneutic process used in the interpretation. Following the case study, three interpretive themes are presented as mutually related aspects of an experiential gestalt that is shaped by the contextual ground of participants' life-world situations. Viewed holistically, the thematic aspects exhibit several dialectical relations that can be understood in terms of the emergent meaning of free choice. The applicability of this experiential gestalt to other life-world contexts is discussed.