Experience Of Alienation Research Articles

An inquiry into queer experiences of regimes of morality in Indian schools: a phenomenological institutional ethnography

Previous studies indicate various atrocities against queer individuals in schools globally. However, no in-depth inquiries have been conducted into the experiences of queer individuals in Indian schools. A novel form of ethnography – phenomenological institutional ethnography (PIE) based on Schutz’s phenomenology of life-worlds and Smith’s institutional ethnography was devised to conduct a qualitative inquiry into the experiences of queer individuals. Participants included 19 queer individuals from different regions of India. Findings revealed five forms of disciplinary mechanisms in schools: regimenting through silencing, moral dictation, name-calling, public shaming, and physical abuse, which deleteriously affect the development of self-concept among queer individuals, and leads to experiences of alienation and inauthentic self-expression, guilty conscience and internalized homophobia, and compromised mental health and low self-esteem. Developing inclusive policies to provide a supportive school environment in India for the queer population is suggested.

Psychopathology and new modes of existence: the meaning of alien experiences

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Alienation of Female Characters in the Movie Fair Play (2023) as Main Breadwinners in the View of Jaggar

The capitalist patriarchal system materializes in every aspect of life, even in the workplace, resulting in men and women's alienation. Unlike previous studies on women's alienation, this article examines the alienation of women as main breadwinners in a financial sector. Through film analysis, this article discusses the movie Fair Play released by Netflix in 2023. The movie focuses on a woman named Emily who gets a higher position than her fiancé in a securities company, causing jealousy. The movie Fair Play tries to distort the reality of how women are able to get higher positions in a male-dominated system. Drawing on Alison Jaggar's alienation theory, this article attempts to show how the form of alienation experienced by Emily as a woman is different from the alienation experienced by men in a capitalist patriarchal system. Using qualitative method in analyzing Fair Play movie scenes, the study reveals that alienation experienced by workers, whether female or male, is the result of an exploitative capitalist system. The article also argues that Emily experiences alienation of sexuality and intellectuality because of her femininity. This implies that women experience double standards because of the double burden caused by gender roles. It concludes that women experience alienation differently from men because of their gender. By eliminating of the concepts of masculinity and femininity, this alienation experienced differently by women can be overcome.

The Alienation–Insulation Dynamic and the Low-Wage Migrant Work Ethic

Low-wage labour migrants moving from lower- to higher-income countries have been celebrated for their strong work ethic over recent decades. The paper draws on qualitative insights from European horticulture to explore why low-wage migrants work as hard as they do. We centre our analysis on an ‘alienation–insulation’ dynamic. Specifically, we show how migrants are particularly alienated in ways that are different to that of the immobile working class. However, we also argue that migrants’ spatial (their dual frame of reference) and temporal (their liminal) agency insulates them from this alienation to some degree. It is important, in this respect, to differentiate between alienation as ostensibly encountered (an objective phenomenon) and the actual felt experiences of alienation (as a subjective phenomenon). We conclude that the alienation–insulation dynamic is a key, but underexplored, element in understanding the complex relationship between labour mobility and labour power.

Education, Emigration, and Exile: Intersecting Paths of Alienation in George Lamming’s In The Castle of My Skin

George Lamming's In The Castle of My Skin offers a nuanced exploration of childhood in 1930s Barbados under colonial rule. The novel intricately navigates the theme of education as a double-edged sword. While it empowers G. with intellectual freedom and exposes him to a world beyond his village, it simultaneously unveils the stark inequalities and cultural clashes embedded within the colonial structure. This creates a sense of dissonance and isolation, positioning G. on the margins of both his traditional community and the dominant colonial elite. Furthermore, the ongoing emigration serves as a potent symbol of colonial dependence and cultural displacement. The protagonist witnesses fellow villagers departures. Each departure erodes the protagonist's sense of belonging, propelling him further into a liminal space between two worlds. Ultimately, G.'s alienation culminates in a profound internal exile, a state of psychological dislocation arising from his fractured identity. Building upon these insights, this paper delves into the protagonist's experience of alienation, arguing that it stems from societal forces like education, emigration, and exile. Through G.'s journey, Lamming portrays the struggles of a generation grappling with the legacies of colonialism, yearning for authentic belonging amidst the ruins of dispossession, and striving to redefine the notion of “home” within the constraints of their circumstances.

Fracturing the affordance space: an account of digitalized alienation.

This paper investigates the lived experience of alienation as a form of mental strife or pathology as it is connected to the digitalization of modern life. To do so, I deploy the concept of affordances from ecological psychology, phenomenology, and embodied cognition. I propose an affordance-based model for understanding digitalized alienation. First, I argue that the lived sense of alienation is best understood as a fracturing of the affordance space, where possibilities for action are lived as disconnected from one another and therefore from one's personal development and search for meaning. Using this model, I show how the process of digitalization can lead to a lived sense of alienation for modern subjects. On this model, digitalization is alienating insofar as it fractures the affordance space into disconnected fields that invite determinate, separate, and repeatable tasks-swiping, clicking, scrolling, etc.-rather than offering opportunities for the development of new cognitive and bodily skills that are mutually informing and enriching across different affordance fields.

Can the Alienated Helper Speak?

This autoethnographic study explores the often overlooked and undervalued roles of assistants in the contemporary art world, focusing on their experiences of alienation and burnout. Through a combination of personal narrative and theoretical analysis, it examines how support roles, despite being essential to artistic production, remain invisible within the dominant art discourse that idolizes creative authorship. I begin with a reflection on my experiences as both an assistant and a curator, highlighting instances of emotional labor and burnout among support staff. The narrative is contextualized within broader cultural and social frameworks, drawing on feminist theory and sociological studies that critique the hierarchical nature of artistic labor. Extending to autofictional literature, the analysis showcases how assistants articulate their alienation and critique the art world’s exploitative dynamics. By interweaving personal and literary accounts, the study underscores the paradox of interdependence in art, where the labor of assistants is both indispensable and disregarded. The conclusion advocates for a reexamination of artworld structures, urging greater recognition and support for those in support roles.

Symposium 3: Networked learning in the time of pandemic

Digital networking technologies have allowed lecturers and students to remain connected while being physically isolated during global lockdowns resultant from the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the increased utilization of online spaces for teaching and learning during the time of isolation has brought the question of intersubjectivity and alienation in cyberspace to the forefront. As part of an ongoing phenomenological analysis of the virtual, we survey the experiences of networked learning reported by a group of South African university students in their end of course surveys. We track particularly their experience of alienation, their capacity to engage with material in the online environment, and their awareness of self as a learner. For Merleau-Ponty there resides in intersubjectivity a founding corporeity that serves to explicate the composition of the intersubjective world as based in a plurality of anonymous subjects and in the intersubjectivity of intellectual consciousnesses. In terms of the virtual, a redeployment of Merleau-Pontian thought (and particularly his concept of the flesh) reveals that the body-subject and digital technology artefact are co-implicit in the generation of the virtual. The virtual serves as a point of networked intersubjectivity that concretely expands and constrains human experience and behaviour. Furthermore, in the virtual we navigate a reified landscape. Virtual reification, though seemingly a contradiction, sees us treating the virtual as concrete from the basis of our embodiment. This leads us to an alienated networked intersubjectivity, whereby all potentialities are founded in ordered and carefully arranged systems that promulgate pragmatic and capitalist logics. We investigate how reification makes up the virtual, and how our engagement with the virtual points us back to the nature of alienation (indeed, for Marx, alienation is an intersubjective social relation). We find in the virtual therefore not isolation, but rather a deficient mode of intersubjectivity. While the individual never becomes atomized, for even in the virtual a deficient mode of intersubjectivity remains nevertheless a mode of intersubjectivity, we find that the individual functions as part of a deficient and distorted network. We suggest in conclusion certain teaching methods that may minimize or mitigate students’ experience of alienation.

The psychology of precarity: A critical framework.

This article presents the rationale and a new critical framework for precarity, which reflects a psychosocial concept that links structural inequities with experiences of alienation, anomie, and uncertainty. Emerging from multiple disciplines, including anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, political science, and psychology, the concept of precarity provides a conceptual scaffolding for understanding the complex causes of precarious life circumstances while also seeking to identify how people react, adapt, and resist the forces that evoke such tenuous psychosocial experiences. We present a critical conceptual framework as a nonlinear heuristic that serves to identify and organize relevant elements of precarity in a presumably infinite number of contexts and applications. The framework identifies socio-political-economic contexts, material conditions, and psychological experiences as key elements of precarity. Another essential aspect of this framework is the delineation of interrelated and nonlinear responses to precarity, which include resistance, adaptation, and resignation. We then summarize selected implications of precarity for psychological interventions, vocational and organizational psychology, and explorations and advocacy about race, gender, and other systems of inequality. Future research directions, including optimal methodologies to study precarity, conclude the article. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The Experience of Social Alienation in Elderly Lung Cancer Patients: A Qualitative Study

PurposeThe aim of this study was to understand the experience of social alienation in elderly lung cancer patients, to explore its causes, and to propose targeted intervention strategies. MethodsFrom July to August 2023, 16 elderly lung cancer patients attending the respiratory department of a tertiary hospital in Changsha City, Hunan Province, were selected for semi-structured interviews using a purposive sampling method. The Colaizzi 7-step method was used to analyze the data. ResultsA total of four themes were distilled: the experience of social alienation in elderly lung cancer patients (pessimistic feelings, inferiority complex, and heavy psychological burden), subjective causes (disease-included shame, avoidant social behavior, and stigmatized labels), objective causes (isolated social states, and reduced amount of socialization), and rehabilitation support. ConclusionThe causes of social alienation in elderly lung cancer patients include multiple aspects of personal, family, and social support, and symptom management and psychological guidance should be strengthened for this population to construct a hospital–society–family triple-linkage care program to help patients recover.

A Qualitative Exploration of the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Parents’ Experiences of Parental Alienation in the United Kingdom

In the aftermath of the global COVID-19 pandemic, it has been highlighted how measures necessary to fight the disease inadvertently exacerbated family violence and placed strain on the judicial system. Across the four countries within the United Kingdom, delays were, and still are, particularly prevalent in family law proceedings, partly due to new breaches in child arrangement orders associated with the pandemic lockdown. The present study therefore examined the experiences of nonresident parents (NRPs) who self-identified as targets of behaviors representative of parental alienation (PA) during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. Using an online survey, 76 nonresidential parents’ responses (92% male;Mage= 45.1 years of age; standard deviation = 7.9) were thematically analyzed. Several themes emerged, including (a) experiences of PA (i.e., risks for children and risks for parents), (b) intimate partner violence (i.e., emotional abuse, physical abuse, and financial abuse), and (c) institutional abuse (i.e., COVID-19, family law, and safeguarding). Specifically, parents detailed several alienating behaviors such as belittling, manipulation, and coercive control, as well as novel forms of coercive controlling patterns, which illustrated how the COVID-19 lockdowns created new opportunities for alienating parents to manipulate the NRP–child relationship. The implications of the results are discussed, including recommendations on improving safeguarding protocols for children with contact orders in place and adopting policy measures to support NRPs. These are also discussed in the context of reforming the justice system utilizing COVID-associated “lessons.”

Governing migrants’ health: how activists in Taiwan construct Southeast Asian migrants’ access to (health)care

Access to healthcare among Southeast Asian migrants in Taiwan is a pressing concern. Once migrants fall ill, they are at risk of losing jobs and even jeopardizing their legal status to work and stay. While existing studies have shed light on migrants’ experiences of alienation in healthcare, there has been limited attention given to the role of migrant activists in negotiating and mobilizing concepts of health. In this article, I examine how activists mediate migrants’ access to health resources. As migrant organizations step in to care for migrants, they render migrants’ bodies legible and admissible by guiding them through the healthcare system. I suggest that activists wield the power to govern by shaping the ideals of a healthy and morally responsible migrant. Their authority to care also hinges upon crafting narratives of collective wellness that foreground the interdependent relationship between citizens and migrants, elevating migrants’ health into vital projects of governance. Through a critical analysis of discourse and praxis around migrant care, my intention is not only to challenge the narrow focus on migrants’ physical wellbeing but also to cast light on the affects of mediating care and how it shapes meanings and values attributed to migrants’ lives.

PERIPHERAL WRITING AND WRITING ON THE PERIPHERY IN TRAVELOGUES BY JAY NORWOOD DARLING

The article is devoted to the little-known literary work of the American cartoonist Jay Norwood Darling. The current study was conducted on the travelogues “Ding Goes to Russia” (1932) and “The Cruise of the Bouncing Betsy. A Trailer Travelogue” (1937). This article aims to reveal and contextualize the features of J.N. Darling’s travel texts as peripheral genres. The main objective of this work is to analyze the deep structures of the travelogues chronotope, based on which the hypothesis will be put forward. Its essence is that the intensity of the crisis time experience in different spaces and through these spaces modifies the involved genre clichés, giving rise to a tragic (for Soviet space) and optimistic (for American space) premonition. The research methodology is based on the study of the interaction between the centre and periphery of the literary system, in particular, the concept of “semiosphere” formulated by Yu. Lotman. Genre analysis includes comparative and contextual methods of studying texts. The cultural-historical method deepens the understanding of the context of Darling’s literary work. Particularly, it is used to discover the historical and social factors that impact the peculiarities of others and one’s own world perception and image reconstruction. Genre analysis of travelogues with various graphic components, including caricatures, involves an intermedia method of studying the semantic connections between visual and verbal in travelogues. The examination of Darling’s travelogues “Ding Goes to Russia” and “The Cruise of the Bouncing Betsy. A Trailer Travelogue”, which inherited different genre traditions, revealed their conceptual and poetic affinities. In both texts, the author investigates the common issues of civilization and its advancement, as well as the significance of technological progress for a human being. The features of the unmanifested future or hidden phenomena of the present are felt more strongly at a distance from the centre, at the intersection of transit paths. Geography in these travels is perceived through anthropological optics, implemented, among other things, through the concepts of the mutual influence of society and space in an unstable world. The experience of alienation is constructed through images of places displayed identically in both travelogues. In Darling’s travelogues, places outside of symbolic meaning come to the fore of the spatio-temporal structure. According to the concept of M. Auger, their features can be attributed to non-places. The key features of the chronotope of both travelogues are the peripheralization of space, the transformation of places into space, and the related process, the representation of non-places. The caricaturists’ texts exhibit genre peripherality through the dual nature of their poetic codes. Behind the secondary nature of the genre constructions of both texts, one cannot help but see individual searches reflected in the unique role and methods of spatial metaphors and imaginary topoi explication. Their semantic and visual density force us to recall and re-estimate the factual writing of the cartoonist in the context of future genre development.

Existentialist Motifs of Alienation and Death in McCarthy’s ‘Border Trilogy’

The article closely reads Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy in light of the existentialist motifs of alienation and death. The aim of the study is to analyse the literary representation of these motifs in the trilogy. The applied methodology involves close reading, which facilitates identifying the motifs of death and alienation in the novels; character analysis, focused on exploring the main characters’ experiences of death and alienation; and comparative analysis, which is used to compare the representation of the existentialist motifs in the novels. The study reveals that in The Border Trilogy, the existentialist motif of alienation manifests itself through the desire of the main characters to free themselves from social conventions and to mend the wrongness of the world they live in. This motif takes forms of madness, alienation from other characters, and isolation from society. The protagonists, looking for their place in the world, face hardships, encounter resistance, and therefore constantly feel estrangement. In the novels, the existentialist motif of death serves for a better understanding of human nature and is one of the driving forces of the protagonists’ existence. This motif manifests itself through blood and bones, dreams, natural and violent deaths, the extermination of nature, and the disappearance of established traditions. Symbolising the end of existence, death prompts the main characters to search for the purpose of their lives and strive for authenticity.

On the Re-Alienation Experiences of the Amateur Runners in Istanbul

In contemporary mass culture, individuals are increasingly subjected to standardization, homogenization, and objectification, leading to experiences of alienation within the societal framework shaped by it. Despite efforts to fortify connections with oneself, the environment, society, and meaning, individuals may still find themselves immersed in alienation within the societal structure they inhabit. Through heightened awareness, individuals strive to reclaim their authentic identities, utilizing various means to distance themselves from alienation. However, this pursuit may paradoxically result in renewed ruptures in connections, as individuals encounter re-alienation, finding themselves ontologically identical yet formally distinct within the alienation process. Amidst the complexities of modern life, individuals often seek self-realization through recreational pursuits like running. Hence, this study endeavors to examine the phenomenon of re-alienation, particularly among amateur runners. By conducting semi-structured, in-depth interviews with runners in Istanbul, the study explores both the process of distancing from alienation and the experience of encountering re-alienation through running. Through its investigation, the study aims to contribute to scholarly discourse on alienation, self-realization, and re-alienation with the lens of critical communication studies. By analyzing the lived experiences of individuals, the research seeks to deepen our understanding of the intricate dynamics of alienation and resilience in contemporary society. Research findings show that running as a recreational activity strengthens individuals' connections with themselves, nature, their social environment, meaning, and values, thereby allowing for a sense of autonomy to be achieved; however, due to social infrastructure and individual psychological tendencies, subject and object fetishes can be developed in relation to running activities, leading to experiences of re-alienation. Keywords: alienation, self-realization, mass culture, sports and recreational studies, critical communication studies

Trauma appraisals and posttraumatic growth among survivors of sexual assault.

Trauma survivors often endorse some level of posttraumatic growth (PTG), referring to positive outcomes after trauma related to meaning-making and strengthened perceptions of the self. While extant research points to cognitive processes at the root of PTG, posttrauma cognitions such as shame, fear, and self-blame have thus far only been linked to negative outcomes of trauma exposure. The current study examines the association between posttrauma appraisals and PTG among victims of interpersonal violence. Findings will reveal whether appraisals directed toward the self (shame and self-blame), toward the world (anger and fear), or those directed toward relationships (betrayal and alienation) are most conducive to growth. A sample of 216 adult women aged 18-64 years were interviewed at baseline and 3, 6, and 9 months later as part of a larger study on social reactions received when disclosing sexual assault. As part of the interview battery, they were administered the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) and Trauma Appraisal Questionnaire. Posttrauma appraisals were used as time-invariant predictors of PTG (PTGI score) at each of the four time points. Posttrauma appraisals of betrayal were associated with initial PTG and alienation appraisals predicted increases in PTG over time. However, self-blame and shame did not predict PTG. Results suggest that a violation to one's views of interpersonal relationships, reflected in experiences of alienation and betrayal posttrauma, may be especially relevant for growth. As PTG reduces distress among trauma victims, this finding suggests targeting maladaptive interpersonal appraisals is an important intervention target. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Early Maladaptive Schemas and Depression in Caregivers of Individuals With Schizophrenia Spectrum and Bipolar Disorders.

Early maladaptive schemas represent unhelpful frameworks of cognitions, emotions and subsequent behavioural responses and can be associated with depressive symptoms. Caregivers of individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) frequently report experiencing depressive symptoms. It is unclear whether depressive symptoms in caregivers are influenced by schemas. We aimed to compare activated schemas in caregivers of people with schizophrenia spectrum (SSD) and bipolar disorder (BD) diagnoses and to determine whether they were differentially related to depressive symptoms. Caregivers completed validated measures of depression and schemas. Independent samples t-tests and multivariate generalised linear models were used to assess differences in schemas and depressive symptoms between caregiver groups. Interrelationships between schema domains and caregiver depressive symptoms were delineated using correlational analyses and forward stepwise regressions. One hundred eight caregivers participated in the study (SSD n = 68, BD n = 40). No differences in depressive symptom severity or activated schemas were observed between caregiver groups. All schemas were significantly associated with depressive symptoms, and the Disconnection-Rejection schema domain explained the most variance in depressive symptoms in both caregiver groups. Schemas contribute to the severity of caregiver depression regardless of whether the person receiving care is diagnosed with SSD or BD. Schema therapeutic frameworks may be beneficial for use with caregivers to address schemas within the Disconnection-Rejection domain and alleviate depressive symptoms by reducing experiences of social isolation and alienation.

Alienation and authoritarian appropriation – the spatiotemporality of political subjectivation under East German urban neoliberalism

This paper contributes to a growing field of spatial analyses of authoritarianism by asking how urban neoliberalization impacts authoritarian subjectivation. It analyses why working class long-term tenants in a gentrifying working class district of the East German city of Leipzig are susceptible to authoritarianism. It traces how their political subjectivation operates through space and time. The theoretical contribution is a spatio-temporally sensitive theorization of subjectivation between alienation and appropriation. Tenants’ experiences of alienation and their attempts of appropriation depend on processes of political economic restructuring in a row of scales from their flat to the reunited nation, and their classed position within these. The tenants in focus develop a nostalgic temporality of belonging, reminiscent of a lost past and devoid of present engagement or an imaginable future. This fosters ideological, authoritarian forms of appropriation, reproducing social hierarchies and scapegoating instead of encouraging practical engagement with present conditions.

There's Something about Uvalde: American Patriarchy and the Slaughter of Innocents.

After every school shooting in the United States both a wish and a fear arise: Will this be the one? Will this be the tipping point for change in a nation so deeply divided over the meaning of "the right to bear arms?" Sandy Hook, Connecticut? No. Parkland, Florida? No. So, why might the killing of 19 children and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Texas, prove different? The American epidemic of mass school shootings betrays a country's willingness to let its children disappear, to sacrifice them on the altar of an archetypally violent ethos. While the internal experiences of alienation, resentment and contempt are often at play in the individuals who carry out such violence, the author suggests that the uniquely American glorification of "the lone wolf", the "rugged individual" and the "misunderstood hero" fuels a supportive background for mass shooters in a nation that appears to be enamoured of ancient patriarchal attitudes as it doubles down on its valuing of weaponry. Such patriarchal attitudes, underscored by capitalism and the profits of the gun industry, are implicated in the territorial adhesion to American gun rights and in the high cost paid by the blood of innocents. Drawing on Vestergaard & Odde's (2021) concepts of socio-analysis and sociality, this paper explores the dynamic process of "mass-character" marked by "contagion, imitation, attraction and repulsion" that convolute cultural values of heritage and freedom into the perverse expression of mass violence.

Addressing the Quandary of Chronic Pain: Learning From Phenomenological Research

Considerable research in recent years has explored the phenomenological experience of patients living with chronic pain. Numerous studies describe pain as a threat to the self and as the target of mostly unsuccessful medical or psychological interventions. Chronic pain, for many sufferers, represents a quandary. It is an alien experience—an impediment or burden imposed on the self—and also one that is intimately familiar, a condition in which the individual with pain is living. The quandary elicits continual engagement in threat detection and efforts to alleviate distress by pursuing pain control strategies of various kinds, many of which exacerbate the pain experience over time. The urge to escape from pain alternates with the pull to be heard, to convey the unique experience of pain and its onus to another. Amid this intractable experience, the patient in pain continually vacillates between urgent efforts to eradicate pain and to define the experience in terms that others, particularly medical practitioners, can understand and validate. Current interventions in medicine and clinical psychology may inadvertently perpetuate the quandary of chronic pain by participating in efforts to reduce or contain the physical symptoms of pain while failing to attend to the patient’s articulation of life experience. A descriptive alternative to mechanistic and functionalist approaches to the psychological treatment of pain offers an alternative to intervention strategies that perpetuate the quandary of chronic pain. Such an approach has the potential to help individuals embrace all aspects of themselves and lead fuller and richer lives.