Tensions in Doing Phenomenological Work

Last night, we began our conjoint exploration of phenomenology through several concrete practices--the analysis of an account, the writing of an account, and the comparison of essential themes across multiple accounts.

I attempted to foreshadow several themes and tensions that we will be navigating this semester:

1) Universality-Particularity. It is tempting to want to call an experience “our own.” Ownership can be thought to extend to a person, a gender, a racial group, etc. On the other hand, no one ever really “owns” an experience from a phenomenological perspective. Every experience is a “possible experience” for another. 

2) Natural-Reflective-Performative. “Nature” is a word we should use with some caution. That said, while our everyday world is shot through with power and sociality, we can say that our “common, everyday attitude” as we navigate the world is our “natural” way of being in the world. In opposition to that, when we stop and try to explain the how and why of everyday life, we are engaged in the reflective attitude. When we self-consciously act in ways we are supposed to act, we are in the “performative” attitude.        

3) Whole-Parts. When we read text, we make sense of it part by part. Yet we make sense of those parts by our emerging sense of the whole. Indeed, we begin every textual reading with an expectation of what the whole will mean. In light of the parts, we revise that expectation. This is putting our pre-understandings into dialogue with everyday life. 

4) Discourse-Experience. Discourse--spoken language--is what we use in our everyday lives to communicate. Indeed, in the post-structural perspective, discourse uses us, shapes us, dominates us. But in the phenomenological tradition, experience is not just an effect of discourse. Experience, rather, is co-equal with discourse. Experience resides just beyond the grasp of discourse, in the felt immediacy of our everyday lives.

A final thing I want you to think about, in regards to last night, is how tricky it is to name and bound “an experience.” We will talk more about what constitutes an experience, and the importance of framing and naming research questions and experiences.

But I do want you to notice how much it matters. Think about the first text we examined last night. How does the investigation change when we racialize or gender the experience? What is opened up by particularizing experiences, and what is closed down? Ultimately, what I think is important is that we see that, while some experiences are more prevalent for certain social groups--for example, the experience of nurturing children--learning from, and opening ourselves up to, such experiences make us more fully human. 

Thanks for a great class!