Alterity and the Flint Water Crisis: Phenomenological Insights into Social Invisibility

by Mitchell Atkinson III

This text develops a novel methodology for social investigation into the Flint (Michigan, USA) water crisis by using classical Husserlian phenomenology as its point of departure. To develop a proper method in a case like this, the author uses as primary data the experiences of the affected community. The text investigates philosophically how a water crisis happens as well as the structures of power responsible. This book grounds contemporary theories of power in a phenomenology of social experience. Key to that grounding is the careful elaboration of subject positions in power structures as partially constitutive of lifeworlds (lebensumwelten) for consciousness. The applied phenomenological tools unravel the central enigma of how a community’s concerns and the dictates of power can become so disastrously estranged. This text appeals to researchers and students working not just in phenomenology and philosophy but also to those working in the field of environmental humanities and on social justice issues.

272 pages, Hardcover

Published September 14, 2023

Reviews

[samodivachka · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work has the ability to bend time independently of the space… it fits any situation and beats all symptoms of boredom. And this is only about the experience of it. On top of reminding the true joys of reading, it also gives shape of everything that is often left out of the spotlight out of fear or shame or simply negligence.