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We do not spontaneously and effortlessly comprehend human phe-
nomena in a changing sociocultural environment other than our own
by birth and upbringing.^1 In a foreign milieu, whatever our research
objectives, we are bewildered by the multiplicity of actors and the in-
evitable interplay in significant events of social, cultural, economic,
political, and religious factors. In such circumstances, we are likely
to unknowingly substitute our own assumptions and categories to
those shared, reaffirmed, or contested by local people. Substitution of
this sort voids any possibility of understanding others, first and fore-
most, as they understand themselves. Ethical interaction with oth-
ers presupposes that we first come to terms with their reality, in their
lifeworld.
I use the expression “lifeworld” as defined by Schutz and Luckmann
( 1973 , 3 ) as “that province of reality [as opposed, for instance, to the
province of reality of art, science, or religion] which the wide-awake
and normal adult simply takes for granted in the attitude of common
sense [as opposed, for instance, to the attitude of the artist, of the sci-
entist, or of the mystic].” In any lifeworld, as adults we conduct our-
selves on the basis of “the general thesis of reciprocal perspective,”
assuming all along that for all practical purposes “the world taken
for granted by me is also taken for granted by you, my individual fel-
low-man, [and] even more, that it is taken for granted by... everyone
who is one of us” (Schutz 1967 , 12 , emphasis in original). As noted
by Rogers ( 1983 , 36 ) in each finite province of meaning, we deal with
9. Moving Beyond Culturally Bound Ethical Guidelines
jean-guy a. goulet
