On the Vulnerability of a Community: Edith Stein and Gerda Walther

Calcagno, Antonio

doi:10.1080/00071773.2018.1434977

Cited by 6 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…6 Enter Gerda Walther. Walther's dissertation, Ontology of Social Communities (1923), has received a flurry of interest in recent years due to her affective notion of togetherness (Calcagno 2012(Calcagno , 2018Caminada 2014;León and Zahavi 2016;Szanto 2017;Zahavi and Salice 2016). Like other phenomenologists, she suggests that being part of a community involves experiencing oneself as part of a group, as part of a 'we' rather than simply as an 'I' (also see Husserl 1989;Scheler 2008;Stein 1989;Schutz 1967).…”

Section: Walther Communal Experiences and The Sense Of Togethernessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feeling togetherness online: a phenomenological sketch of online communal experiences

Osler

2019

Phenom Cogn Sci

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The internet provides us with a multitude of ways of interacting with one another. In discussions about how technological innovations impact and shape our interpersonal interactions, there is a tendency to assume that encountering people online is essentially different to encountering people offline. Yet, individuals report feeling a sense of togetherness with one another online that echoes offline descriptions. I consider how we can understand people's experiences of being together with others online, at least in certain instances, as arising out of their feeling together as a we. Using Walther's phenomenological framework of communality, I explore whether the following might take place online: (i) habitual communal experiences and (ii) actual we-experiences. While neither of these sketches amount to a full account of how we find ourselves with others online, I suggest that they reveal how insights from the phenomenology of sociality can be used to deepen our understanding of online communality. What is more, I suggest that the strength of this approach is that in some cases it allows us to circumvent tricky questions about embodiment online and, in others, prompts us to ask to what extent a fully-embodied interaction is really required for we-experiences.

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Section: Walther Communal Experiences and The Sense Of Togethernessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feeling togetherness online: a phenomenological sketch of online communal experiences

Osler

2019

Phenom Cogn Sci

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“…These create a compelling narrative of a group's past and present and offset the feelings of disconnection in the absence of a shared presence so the very lived experience of togetherness is maintained (Calcagno, 2018;Holt and Johnsen, 2019).…”

Section: The Importance Of We-sustaining Practices For Working Throug...mentioning

confidence: 99%

We-experiences and the maintenance of workplace friendships: Being workplace friends together

Korber

Hibbert

Callagher

et al. 2023

Management Learning

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In this article, we are interested in how togetherness in workplace friendships is experienced in the absence of physical co-presence. We explore practices through which we-experiences, that is, shared experiences that produce feelings of togetherness, are realized and maintained across time and space and how different we-experiences constitute different modes of togetherness. Findings from our autoethnographic phenomenological study suggest four modes. Transactive togetherness as vivid and intense we-experiences in the face of tight deadlines but little genuine we-experiences at other times. Retrospective togetherness as re-lived we-experiences when shared memories or stories are retold, recalled, and ‘brought back to life’. Associative togetherness as we-experiences that emerge in the light of immediate emotional and personal challenges that are addressed collectively. Projective togetherness as anticipated we-experiences that emerge from a compelling vision of each other in our work and personal life. We add to the current conversations on the continuous entanglement and interlocking nature of we-experiences, the temporality of togetherness at work, and how friendships are actively accomplished through individuals.

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“…The above-quoted passage suggests that we are, indeed, to think of habitual unification as the co-presence of "humans, who also…." For Walther [3], "humans who also" is a category that describes a particular form of unification, namely habitual unification [27]. Habitual unification and experiencing others as "humans, who also…" can thus be understood as being equiprimordial [28,29].…”

Section: Habitual Unification and Walther's Notion Of "Humans Who Also…"mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Experiencing someone as also having a certain experience, also having the same basic attitude towards the world, etc., prompts the individual to integrate the other into their experience: it enables unification with them in the first place [3]. The above-quoted passage suggests that we are, indeed, to think of habitual unification as the co-presence of “humans, who also….” For Walther [3], “humans who also” is a category that describes a particular form of unification, namely habitual unification [27]. Habitual unification and experiencing others as “humans, who also…” can thus be understood as being equiprimordial [28, 29].…”

Section: Habitual Unification and Walther’s Notion Of “Humans Who Also…”mentioning

confidence: 99%

Background Feelings of Belonging and Psychological Trauma

Wilde

2021

Psychopathology

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Reports of not feeling understood are frequent in testimonies of psychological trauma. I argue that these feelings are not a matter of a cognitive failure but rather an expression of the absence of a more pervasive background feeling of belonging. Contemporary accounts of we-intentionality promise but ultimately fall short in explaining this sense of belonging. Gerda Walther offers an alternative account of communal experiences. Her notion of “habitual unification” can explain the background feelings of belonging that are woven through the individual’s everyday experience of being in a shared world. Having unified with another person, the world feels different. It is now experienced in light of a “we.” This is not only the case in actual, singular person-to-person encounters. Unification with others becomes habitual: it retreats into the background of the individual’s awareness, colouring their experience of the world. Thus sedimented, it forms a background sense of belonging to a shared world. Unification is enabled by experiencing others as being similar in a significant way, such as having the same experiences, values, or basic attitude: in Walther’s words, as being a “human, who also….” This, I shall argue, is impacted through traumatizing experiences. Trauma survivors struggle to experience others as “humans, who also…,” resulting in a failure of unification and thus impeding feelings of belonging. Trauma testimonies also suggest that actively seeking out recognition of similarities and shared aspects of experience may once again enable experiencing others as “humans, who also…,” thus enabling unification and re-establishing a sense of belonging.

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On the Vulnerability of a Community: Edith Stein and Gerda Walther

Cited by 6 publications

References 10 publications

Feeling togetherness online: a phenomenological sketch of online communal experiences

Feeling togetherness online: a phenomenological sketch of online communal experiences

We-experiences and the maintenance of workplace friendships: Being workplace friends together

Background Feelings of Belonging and Psychological Trauma

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