top of page
Search

Verstehen

Writer's picture: CroneCrone

I found this word jotted down in one of my many disorganised notebooks while I was fruitlessly looking for something I had written about trees.


Verstehen is, according to Wikipedia, a systematic interpretive process in which an outside observer of a culture attempts to relate to it and understand others. The description continues:


Verstehen refers to understanding the meaning of action from the actor's point of view. It is entering into the shoes of the other, and adopting this research stance requires treating the actor as a subject, rather than an object of your observations. It also implies that unlike objects in the natural world human actors are not simply the product of the pulls and pushes of external forces. Individuals are seen to create the world by organizing their own understanding of it and giving it meaning. To do research on actors without taking into account the meanings they attribute to their actions or environment is to treat them like objects.


Next to it, I had jotted down "Lucy Rees". She is an ethologist who studies horses. I've read a couple of her books. So, presumably, someone said that Rees' work with horses is like that of sociologists or anthropologists. That seems right. It is indeed what ethologists (should) do.


Apparently, some critics argue that anthropologists should not just look from the outside, like smart-arse academics pontificating on "primitive" people, because they will inevitably bring their own biases and expectations etc which will colour their interpretation. They also say that "it is the sociologist's job to not just observe people and what people do but also share in their world of meaning and come to appreciate why they act as they do."


This takes the role of the sociologist - and I really am thinking of ethologists actually, of course - much deeper. Let's think about how this would work with the animals.


When I say that Tane comes to the garden when they (I am no longer convinced Tane is male) see me, as then they feel more confident trespassing as Garden Robin is shy of me, that is presumably a fair enough act of Verstehen.



Tane above, then Garden Robin.


How would I take this further? How would I share in their world of meaning and come to appreciate "why they act as they do"? I guess that is precisely what Charles Foster was attempting to do in Being a Beast.


Should I try nesting in a bush next April?

3 views1 comment

Recent Posts

See All

1 Comment


maplekey4
Oct 18, 2024

Love that last (non-rhetorical) question!!

I'm going to add "Verstehen " to my list of interesting words.

Yes, that's a neat example you give - your observation of Tane & Garden Robin, & what their behaviours might mean to them. Cool.

Like
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

©2019 by The Wisdom of the Crone. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page