Post-phenomenological geographies: the politics of social life

Post-phenomenological geographies: the politics of social life

James Ash (Newcastle University) and Paul Simpson (University of Plymouth)

This session seeks to interrogate how post-phenomenological geographies can attend to social life in all its circumstantial specificity, diversity, variety and dynamism (McCormack 2017). In particular, we invite papers which consider how a post-phenomenological geography might deal with issues of inequality, power, and difference, as well as other factors which are said to restrict and / or shape subjectivities that make up the social world. This is not just a case of adding these terms and their existing understandings (in terms of discourse, social construction, structure, etc) to phenomenology to make it ‘post-’. Rather, it is a case of questioning what these terms mean and how they might be rearticulated in light of the sorts of developments post-phenomenologies have brought. Equally, we welcome the invention of new terms and concepts which might help us apprehend such diversity and difference in sociality. As part of this, we invite contributions which question what the ‘social’ world is, given, for example, recent discussions in human geography around the multitude of vibrant materials and objects which both exist alongside us and pattern socio-political life (Shaw 2012).

In terms of specific questions that papers might address, we are particularly interested in papers which ask:

  • How might key phenomenological concepts (lifeworld, dwelling, intersubjectivity, etc) be rethought in light of recent post-phenomenologies?
  • How might post-phenomenology think with, for example, feminist, queer, or ‘new’ phenomenologies?
  • What do terms like ‘politics’, ‘the social’, or ‘difference’ mean to post-phenomenology?
  • What are the temporalities of the post-phenomenological subject and how do these bear upon the present?
  • How might we account for the sociality and politics of objects and technologies in their autonomy?
  • What are the limits of post-phenomenology for thinking the social?