Social disorientation: a (critical) phenomenological study

The everyday language term “disorientation” can be applied to a vast range of different phenomena. As evidenced by everyday discourse, talk of disorientation cuts across both positive, negative, as well as more ambivalent experiences of emotional upheaval in which one appears to lose one’s bearings in and with the social world. For example, one may report a sense of disorientation in response to falling in love, losing a loved one, or misfitting the social norms. In such cases, the term “disorientation” is not evoked in the literal sense of disorientation, namely the malfunctioning of orientation processes in navigating physical space. Rather, it is used in the metaphorical sense, namely the experience of feeling at a loss as to how to go on with one’s own life. This thesis is about the phenomenon of disorientation in its metaphorical sense. Drawing on resources in phenomenology, social philosophy, philosophy of emotions, and philosophy of agency, I examine in detail what it is like first-personally to experience metaphorical disorientation in navigating social space. Despite the heterogeneous nature of metaphorical disorientation, I argue that there is a unifying phenomenological structure underlying paradigmatic cases of metaphorical disorientation. I call this phenomenological structure “social disorientation” and demonstrate that it consists in a constitutive relationship between feeling not at home and perceived lack of agency over one’s personal future. In developing and defending the phenomenological category of social disorientation, I aim to contribute not only to the small but growing scholarship on metaphorical disorientation experiences in particular, but also to philosophical scholarship concerning social life in general.