Space, Discourse and Visibility: Towards a Phenomenology of Invisibility

Abstract

It is precisely because ‘invisibility’ as a social phenomenon seems somewhat immaterial — in the sense of lacking in material grounding — that it is such a rich and timely domain of cognitive investigation and one that challenges the frontiers of traditional academic disciplines. The discussion of Emmanuel Renault’s work on human suffering in the workplace in Chapter 1 provides us with a good case in point to illustrate the need to adopt a crossdisciplinary methodology which reaches across disciplinary divides.¹ This challenging yet timely agenda of the social sciences, as it is set out by Renault, is crucial to any investigation into what I have rather heuristically proposed to call ‘invisibility studies’.