PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON PLACE, LIFEWORLDS AND LIVED EMPLACEMENT : the selected writings of.. david seamon

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. Cover -1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 List of Illustrations 8 Figures -1 Tables -1 Acknowledgments 9 Chapter 1: An Introduction: Going Places 12 Discovering Phenomenology 13 Studying Place and Environmental Experience 15 Part I. The Value of Phenomenology for Studying Place 16 Part II. Understanding Place Phenomenologically 17 Part III. Places, Lived Emplacement, and Place Presence 17 Three Aspects of Places 19 Robust Places and Husserl’s Renewal 20 Notes 21 References 22 Part I: The Value of Phenomenology for Studying Place 24 Chapter 2: Lived Bodies, Place, and Phenomenology 26 Encountering the Lifeworld 26 The Natural Attitude, Epoché, and Phenomenological Reductions 28 The Lived Body, Environmental Embodiment, and Body-Subject 30 The Phenomenology of Place 31 Environmental Embodiment, Urban Place, and Street Ballet 33 Lived Bodies and Jacobs’ Four Conditions for Diversity 35 Building Variety and Short Blocks 36 Place and Pathway Configuration 37 A Heat Wave in Chicago 38 Contrasting Urban Places 39 Jacobs and Klinenberg Together 41 The Inertia of Lived Bodies and Places 42 Places Facilitating Lifeworlds 44 The Agentic Potential of Material Realities 45 Notes 46 References 47 Chapter 3: The Wellbeing of People and Place 50 Lifeworld, Natural Attitude, and Homeworld 51 Place and Human-Immersion-in-World 53 An Elderly Father’s Lifeworld 53 An Old Woman’s Homeworld 54 Compromised Lifeworlds and Place 56 Immersion-in-Place, Lived Obliviousness, and Wellbeing 57 Placemaking and Wellbeing 58 Notes 59 References 59 Chapter 4: Body-Subject, Time-Space Routines, and Place Ballets 62 Natural Attitude, Lifeworld, and Epoché 63 Conventional Approaches to Everyday Movement 64 The Habitual Nature of Everyday Movement 65 The Notion of Body-Subject 67 Body and Place Choreographies 70 Wider Contexts 71 Implications 73 Notes 75 References 75 Chapter 5: Whither Phenomenological Research?: Possibilities for Environmental and Place Studies 77 Placing Phenomenology 77 Evaluating Phenomenology 85 Displacing Phenomenology 86 Questioning Place, At-Homeness, and Lived Emplacement 89 Notes 91 References 92 Part II: Understanding Place Phenomenologically 96 Chapter 6: Merleau-Ponty, Lived Body, and Place: Toward a Phenomenology of Human Situatedness 98 Place, Phenomenology, Natural Attitude, and Lifeworld 99 Merleau-Ponty and Perception 100 Merleau-Ponty and Body-Subject 101 Interpretation 1: A Passage from García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude 102 Interpretation 2: Observations of a Walk Between Home and Work 104 Body-subject and Perceptual Field 105 Intercorporeal Presence 107 Modes of Place Encounter 109 Place, Environment, and Situatedness 112 Observations Relating to Body-subject and Perceptual Field 114 Observations Relating to Intercorporeal Presence 115 Observations Relating to Place Encounter 117 Notes 119 References 121 Chapter 7: Serendipitous Events in Place: The Weave of Bodies and Context via Environmental Unexpectedness and Chance 124 Fortunate Place Encounters 124 Place Qualities and Serendipity 126 Deadly Place Encounters 127 Connections to Architecture and Design 128 The Future of Environmental Serendipity 130 Notes 131 References 131 Chapter 8: Architecture, Place, and Phenomenology: Buildings as Lifeworlds, Atmospheres, and Environmental Wholes 133 Buildings as Lifeworlds and Places 133 A Typology of Building Lifeworlds 135 Building Lifeworlds and Time 136 Buildings as Architectural Atmospheres 139 Architectural Atmospheres and Archetypes 140 Buildings as Environmental and Human Wholes 143 Christopher Alexander and Architectural and Place Wholeness 144 Integrating Lifeworlds, Atmospheres, and Wholeness 145 Notes 145 References 146 Chapter 9: The Value of Phenomenology for a Pedagogy of Place and Placemaking 148 Max van Manen’s Five Existentials 149 Phenomenologies of Place 150 A Phenomenology of Place-as-Process 151 The Pedagogical Value of the Six Place Processes 153 Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language 154 The Meadowcreek Studio as an Example 155 Phenomenology and Place-Based Education 159 “To Awaken to the World as Phenomenon” 160 Notes 161 References 161 Chapter 10: A Phenomenological Reading of Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of Great American Cities 163 Jacobs’ Mode of Understanding as Phenomenological Method 164 Citiness as a Phenomenon 165 A Phenomenology of Urban Place 166 Jacobs’ Street Ballet as Environmental Embodiment 168 Jacobs as Practical Phenomenologist 169 Notes 170 References 171 Part III: Places, Lived Emplacement, and Place Presence 174 Chapter 11: Place, Placelessness, Insideness, and Outsideness in American Filmmaker John Sayles’ Sunshine State 176 Insideness and Outsideness as Modes of Place Experience 178 Existential Insiders in Sunshine State 179 Insiders Remaining or Returning 180 Outsiders as Uncertain Agents of Placelessness 181 Outsiders Begetting Placelessness 183 Outsideness Helping Insideness 184 Place or Placelessness? 184 Twenty-First-Century Place 186 Sunshine State as Phenomenological Insight 187 Notes 189 References 189 Chapter 12: Place, Belonging, and Environmental Humility: The Experience of “Teched” as Portrayed by American Writer Louis Bromfield 192 Up Ferguson Way 193 Teched as an Experience 194 Teched and Place 196 Teched, Place, and Belonging 199 Teched and Environmental Humility 201 Notes 202 References 203 Chapter 13: Finding One’s Place: Environmental and Human Risk in American Filmmaker John Sayles’ Limbo 205 A Film in Two Parts 206 Sayles’ Definitions of “Limbo” 207 A State of Neglect or Oblivion 208 A Confining Abode of Abandoned Souls 210 Uncertainty and Potential Transitions 213 Natural Versus Human Worlds 215 Hazard, Authenticity, and Life-in-Place 217 Notes 218 References 218 Chapter 14: Phenomenology and Uncanny Homecomings: Homeworld, Alienworld, and Being-at-Home in Alan Ball’s HBO Television Series, Six Feet Under 221 Six Feet Under as a Postmodernism of Reaction 222 Six Feet Under as a Postmodernism of Resistance 223 Bridging Reaction and Resistance: Homeworld/Alienworld 224 Homeworld/Alienworld in Six Feet Under 226 Bridging Reaction and Resistance: Being-at-Home 227 Six Feet Under and Uncanny Homecoming 229 Notes 231 References 231 Chapter 15: A Phenomenology of Inhabitation: The Lived Reciprocity between Houses and Inhabitants as Portrayed by American Writer Louis Bromfield 234 Houses and Inhabitants 235 A Basque Farmhouse 235 “A Place which Grows about the Heart” 236 A House Desecrated 237 A Phenomenology of Inhabitation 238 Three Place Qualities 240 Notes 241 References 241 Chapter 16: Using Place to Understand Lifeworld: The Example of British Novelist Penelope Lively’s Spiderweb 243 Explicating Lifeworlds 243 Concretizing Lifeworlds 244 Place as Wholeness 246 Place Ballet in Spiderweb 247 Place as Binary: Homeworld and Alienworld 248 Homeworld and Alienworld in Spiderweb 249 Understanding Lifeworld and Place 251 Notes 252 References 252 Chapter 17: Moments of Realization: Extending Homeworld in British-African Novelist Doris Lessing’s Four-Gated City 255 Lifeworlds and Natural Attitudes 256 Homeworlds and Alienworlds 257 A Process of Self-Discovery 258 Finding One’s Place 260 Encountering an Alienworld 262 Realizing Another’s Experience 263 Exploring Inner Terrain 265 “There is No Substitute for Experience” 265 Notes 267 References 268 Chapter 18: Looking at a Photograph: André Kertész’s 1928 Meudon : Interpreting Aesthetic Experience Phenomenologically 271 Student Responses to Meudon 271 Meudon and Lifeworld 275 Reconciling Encounters? 277 Widening and Deepening Interpretation 279 Notes 281 References 281 Appendix: Other Selected Works by David Seamon (1978–2022) 283 Books 283 Journal Articles and Chapters in Edited Collections 284 Index 289