This study explored how the discourse of definitions and management standards was exhibited among core homeland security texts. The overarching objective was to seek an understanding of how definitions evolved across these texts through a critical hermeneutic-phenomenological interpretive analysis. The study lends itself to a hermeneutic interpretation of phenomena due to its propensity toward the "cultural anthropological researcher" approach in understanding human traditions upon which all written works are constructed. A purposeful sample of homeland security texts were selected based upon their use toward establishing law and policy that drove management decisions in the years just prior to the events of September 11, 2001 and for the ensuing fourteen years. This study uncovered the complexities involved in describing homeland security utilizing a qualitative textual interpretation of open-source government documents.
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