Estrangement: A Beginner’s Guide to the Strangeness of the World

Abstract

Geographers adopted the concept of Being-in-the-World from Martin Heidegger. However, most have wisely eschewed the philosopher’s larger ontological and pantheistic project. Nevertheless, geographers can make use of basic phenomenological concepts and terms. The world of appearances can be reduced to the three basic phenomena of objects, subjects, and death, and each of these phenomena engenders in humans a feeling of estrangement, angst, or alienation. There are four responses to the world’s appearance as an uncanny place: otherworldliness, existentialism, naturalism, and escapism. Because the events predicted in this volume will almost certainly make the world appear more and more uncanny, an important (but here unanswered) question is which of these responses will prevail.