Based on two decades of fieldwork, an anthropologist's revealing exploration of conflict, displacement and cooperation at the margins of the state.

Fragility is a condition that inhabits the foundations of social life. It remains mostly unnoticed until something breaks and dislocates the sense of completion. In such moments of rupture, the social world reveals the stuff of which it is made and how it actually works; it opens itself to question. Based on this claim, this book reconsiders the place of the notions of crisis and critique as fundamental means to grasp the fragile condition of the social and challenges the normalization and dissolution of these ‘concepts’ in contemporary social theory. It draws on fundamental insights from Hegel, Marx, and Adorno as to recover the importance of the critique of concepts for the critique of society, and engages in a series of studies on the work of Habermas, Koselleck, Arendt, and Foucault as to consider anew the relationship of crisis and critique as immanent to the political and economic forms of modernity. Moving from crisis to critique and from critique to crisis, the book shows that fragility is a price to be paid for accepting the relational constitution of the social world as a human domain without secure foundations, but also for wishing to break free from all attempts at giving closure to social life as an identity without question. This book will engage students of sociology, political theory and social philosophy alike.

GWF Hegel famously described philosophy as 'its own time apprehended in thoughts', reflecting a desire that we increasingly experience, namely, the desire to understand our complex and fast-changing world. But how can we philosophically describe the world we live in? When Hegel attempted his systematic account of the historical world, he needed to conceive of history as rational progress to allow for such description. After the events of the twentieth century, we are rightfully doubtful about such progress. However, in the twentieth century, another German philosopher, Edmund Husserl, attempted a similar project when he realised that a philosophical account of our human experience requires attending to the historical world we live in. According to Husserl, the Western world is a world in crisis. In this book, Tanja Staehler explores how Husserl thus radicalises Hegel’s philosophy by providing an account of historical movement as open. Husserl’s phenomenology allows thinking of historical worlds in the plural, without hierarchy, determined by ethics and aesthetics. Staehler argues that, through his radicalization of Hegel’s philosophy, Husserl provides us with a historical phenomenology and a coherent concept of a culture that points to the future for phenomenology as a philosophy that provides the methodological grounding for a variety of qualitative approaches in the humanities and social sciences.

This paper offers remarkable insights into the German food market and its consumers. A solid theoretical foundation is laid by classical as well as modern authors. The works of these authors form the basis for the theoretical analysis on a social determination of taste. In the following, the field of sociology of consumption is taken into account and analysed. In the practical part, consumers are researched using lifeworlds as a tool of categorization of German households. In the market research economy, lifeworlds are widely perceived as an appropriate tool for researching present and future market developments. The analysed empirical data on purchasing behaviour was provided by the market research study Typology of Desires 2010. Results in the direction of a social determination of taste offer valuable perceptions for theorists and practitioners alike.

How do old ideas continue to appear relevant in a modern world? A sociological approach to Islam allow us to approach an answer to this question. In Lifeworlds of Islam, Mohammed A. Bamyeh shows that Islam has typically operated not in the form of standard dogmas, but more often as a compass for practical individual orientations or "lifeworlds." Through a comprehensive sociological analysis of Islam, he maps out how Muslims have employed the faith to foster global networks, public philosophies, and engaged civic lives both historically and in the present. Bamyeh further argues that all three fields are poorly understood in recent literature, which tends to focus on one specific problem or another and does not take into account the variety of lifeworlds in which Islam operates. The book contends that the larger preoccupations of ordinary Muslims-how to imagine a global society, how to guide life in the manner of a total philosophy, and how to relate to the world of daily struggles in organized or semi-organized civic forums and social movements-are neither unique to the present period nor to religious life. They are rather shared universal quandaries. A focused empirical lens on the career of a religion, Lifeworlds of Islam contributes to the larger literature and provides insight into the nature of global citizenship, the philosophical needs of individuals, and the ethical values that foster social participation.

Phenomenological Perspectives on Place, Lifeworlds and Lived Emplacement is a compilation of seventeen previously published articles and chapters by David Seamon, one of the foremost researchers in environmental, architectural, and place phenomenology. These entries discuss such topics as body-subject, the lived body, place ballets, environmental serendipity, homeworlds, and the pedagogy of place and placemaking. The volume's chapters are broken into three parts. Part I includes four entries that consider what phenomenology offers studies of place and placemaking. These chapters illustrate the theoretical and practical value of phenomenological concepts like lifeworld, natural attitude, and bodily actions in place. Part II incorporates five chapters that aim to understand place and lived emplacement phenomenologically. Topics covered include environmental situatedness, architectural phenomenology, environmental serendipity, and the value of phenomenology for a pedagogy of place and placemaking. Part III presents a number of explications of real-world places and place experience, drawing on examples from photography (André Kertész’s Meudon), television (Alan Ball’s Six Feet Under), film (John Sayles’ Limbo and Sunshine State), and imaginative literature (Doris Lessing’s The Four-Gated City and Louis Bromfield’s The World We Live in). Seamon is a major figure in environment-behavior research, particularly as that work has applied value for design professionals. This volume will be of interest to geographers, environmental psychologists, architects, planners, policymakers, and other researchers and practitioners concerned with place, place experience, place meaning, and place making.

Deathworlds are places on planet earth that can no longer sustain life. These are increasing rapidly. We experience remnants of Deathworlds within our Lifeworlds (for example traumatic echoes of war, genocide, oppression). Many practices and policies, directly or indirectly, are "Deathworld-Making." They undermine Lifeworlds contributing to community decline, illnesses, climate change, and species extinction. This book highlights the ways in which writing about and sharing meaningful experiences may lead to social and environmental justice practices, decreasing Deathworld-Making. Phenomenology is a method which reveals the connection between personal suffering and the suffering of the planet earth and all its creatures. Sharing can lead to collaborative relationships among strangers for social and environmental justice across barriers of culture, politics, and language. "Deathworlds into Lifeworlds wakes people up to how current economic and social forces are destroying life and communities on our planet, as I have mapped in my work. The chapters by scholars around the world in this powerful book testify to the pervasive consequences of the proliferation of Deathworld-making and ways that collaboration across cultures can help move us forward." —Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and a Member of its Committee on Global Thought. "Recognizing the inseparability of experience, consciousness, environment and problematics in rebalancing life systems, this book offers solutions from around the world." —Four Arrows, aka Don Trent Jacobs, author of Sitting Bull's Words for A World in Crises, et al. "This unique book brings together 78 participants from 11 countries to reveal the ways in which phenomenology – the study of consciousness and phenomena — can lead to profound personal and social transformation. Such transformation is especially powerful when "Deathworlds" – physical or cultural places that no longer sustain life – are transformed into "lifeworlds" through collaborative sharing, even when (or, perhaps, especially when) the sharing is among strangers across different cultures. The contributors share a truly wide range of human experiences, from the death of a child to ecological destruction, in offering ways to affirm life in the face of what may seem to be hopeless death-affirming challenges." —Richard P. Appelbaum, Ph.D., is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus and former MacArthur Foundation Chair in Global and International Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also a founding Professor at Fielding Graduate University, where he heads the doctoral concentration in Sustainability Leadership. "Deathworlds is a love letter for the planet—our home. By documenting places that no longer sustain life, the authors collectively pull back the curtain on these places, rendering them meaningful by connecting what ails us with what ails the world." —Katrina S. Rogers, Ph.D., conservation activist and author "Deathworlds to Lifeworlds represents collaboration among Fielding Graduate University, the University of Łodź (Poland), and the University of the Virgin Islands. Students and faculty from these universities participated in seminars on transformative phenomenology and developed rich phenomenologically based narratives of their experiences or others’. These phenomenological protocol narratives creatively modify and integrate with everyday experience the conceptual frameworks of Husserl, Schutz, Heidegger, Habermas, and others. The diverse protocol authors demonstrate how phenomenological reflection is transformative first by revealing how Deathworlds, which lead to physical, mental, social, or ecological decline, imperil invaluable lifeworlds. Deathworlds appear on lifeworld fringes, such as extra-urban trash landfills, where unnoticed impoverished workers labor to the destruction of their own health. Poignant protocol-narratives highlight the plight and noble struggle of homeless people, the mother of a dying 19-year-old son, persons inclined to suicide, overwhelmed first responders, alcoholics who through inspiration achieve sobriety, unravelled We-Relationships, those suffering from and overcoming addiction or misogynist stereotypes or excessive pressures, veterans distraught after combat, a military mother, those in liminal situations, and oppressed indigenous peoples who still make available their liberating spirituality. Transformative phenomenology exemplifies that generous responsiveness to the ethical summons to solidarity to which Levinas’s Other invites us." —Michael Barber, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, St. Louis University. He has authored seven books and more than 80 articles in the general area of phenomenology and the social world. He is editor of Schützian Research, an annual interdisciplinary journal. "This book helps us notice the Deathworlds that surround us and advocates for their de-naturalization. Its central claim is that the ten virtues of the transformative phenomenologist allow us to do so by changing ourselves and the worlds we live in. In this light, the book is an outstanding presentation of the international movement known as "transformative phenomenology." It makes groundbreaking contributions to a tradition in which some of the authors are considered the main referents. Also, it offers an innovative understanding of Alfred Schutz’s philosophy of the Lifeworld and a fruitful application of Van Manen’s method of written protocols." —Carlos Belvedere, Ph.D., Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires" "Moving beyond the social phenomenology carved out by Alfred Schütz, this impressive volume of action-based experiential research displays the efficacy of applying phenomenological protocols to explore Deathworlds, the tacit side of the foundational conception of Lifeworlds. Over twenty-one chapters, plus an epilogue, readers are transported by the train of Transformative Phenomenology, created during what’s been called the Silver Age of Phenomenology (1996 – present) at the Fielding Graduate University. An international amalgam of students and faculty from universities in Poland, the United States, the Virigin Islands, Canada, and socio-cultural locations throughout the world harnessed their collective energy to advance the practical call of phenomenology as a pathway to meaning-making through rich descriptions of lived experience. Topics include dwelling with strangers, dealing with trash, walking with the homeless, death of a young person, overcoming colonialism, precognition, environmental destruction, and so much more. The research collection enhances what counts as phenomenological inquiry, while remaining respectful of Edmund Husserl’s philosophical roots." —David Rehorick, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of New Brunswick (Canada) & Professor Emeritus, Fielding Graduate University (U.S.A.), Vancouver, British Columbia.

How can religion help to understand and contend with the challenges of climate change? Understanding Climate Change through Religious Lifeworld, edited by David Haberman, presents a unique collection of essays that detail how the effects of human-related climate change are actively reshaping religious ideas and practices, even as religious groups and communities endeavor to bring their traditions to bear on mounting climate challenges. People of faith from the low-lying islands of the South Pacific to the glacial regions of the Himalayas are influencing how their communities understand earthly problems and develop meaningful responses to them. This collection focuses on a variety of different aspects of this critical interaction, including the role of religion in ongoing debates about climate change, religious sources of environmental knowledge and how this knowledge informs community responses to climate change, and the ways that climate change is in turn driving religious change. Understanding Climate Change through Religious Lifeworlds offers a transnational view of how religion reconciles the concepts of the global and the local and influences the challenges of climate change.

The course of German philosophy in the twentieth century is one of the most exciting, diverse and controversial periods in the history of human thought. It is widely studied and its legacy hotly contested. In this outstanding introduction, Julian Young explains and assesses the two dominant traditions in modern German philosophy – critical theory and phenomenology – by examining the following key thinkers and topics: Max Weber’s setting the agenda for modern German philosophy: the ‘rationalization’ and ‘disenchantment’ of modernity resulting in ‘loss of freedom’ and ‘loss of meaning’ Horkheimer and Adorno: rationalization and the ‘culture industry’ Habermas’ defence of Enlightenment rationalization, the ‘unfinished project of modernity’ Marcuse: a Freud-based vision of a repression-free utopia Husserl: overcoming the ‘crisis of humanity’ through phenomenology Early Heidegger’s existential phenomenology: ‘authenticity’ as loyalty to ‘heritage’ Gadamer and ‘fusion of horizons’ Arendt: the human condition Later Heidegger: the re-enchantment of reality. German Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: Weber to Heidegger is essential reading for students of German philosophy, phenomenology and critical theory, and will also be of interest to students in related fields such as literature, religious studies, and political theory.