Lecture 7

Modern Phenomenology & Power: The Lived Experience of Systems

Phenomenology reaches its full strength when it moves beyond individual scenes to examine the systems that structure them. This lecture extends our understanding to explicitly address questions of power, orientation, and belonging in social systems.

Embodied Experience & Perception

Core Concept: Our perception of the world is fundamentally embodied; our body is our primary means of access to the world, shaping how we experience social structures.

Philosophers like Maurice Merleau-Ponty argued that the body is not just a container for the mind, but our direct link to reality. In modern life, where mental engagement often outpaces physical awareness, phenomenology helps us recover attentiveness to our physical and social environments.

Phenomenology of Power

Core Concept: Modern phenomenology examines how our bodies move through spaces differently depending on our social position, revealing the lived experience of power and marginalization.

Scholars such as Iris Marion Young and Sara Ahmed explore how some people feel "at home" in systems that marginalize others. Social structures are not just abstract ideas; they are felt physically, as ease or obstacle, inclusion or exclusion.

Think of a public space (e.g., a bus, a park, a store). How might different individuals (e.g., someone with a disability, a person of color, a parent with small children) experience that same space differently? What makes it welcoming or unwelcoming for them?

Phenomenology Becomes Sociological

Core Concept: At this stage, phenomenology explicitly reveals how lived experience is shaped by social structures larger than any single life.

This is not an exercise in self-definition, but in world-awareness. It helps us see that narratives are easier or harder to tell depending on how the world is organized by power.

The "Outdated" Myth

Core Concept: Phenomenology is not a relic; it provides the "micro-foundation" for understanding the human heartbeat within larger social structures.

In an era of "Big Data," phenomenology provides the "Small Data"—the subjective *why* behind behavior. It's the study of the human heartbeat within society.

Implications for Data Science

Core Concept: Understanding the embodied and power-laden nature of experience is crucial for responsibly interpreting social data.

Data gains meaning when it is situated within lived contexts. Phenomenology reconnects narration to the world it describes, ensuring that our technical analyses are grounded in human reality and aware of power dynamics.