Copyright by Mason Russell McWatters 2013 The Dissertation Committee for Mason Russell McWatters certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Unworlding and Worlding of Agoraphobia Committee: ____________________________________ Paul C. Adams, Supervisor ____________________________________ Steven D. Hoelscher ____________________________________ Kathleen C. Stewart ____________________________________ Rebecca M. Torres ____________________________________ Leo E. Zonn The Unworlding and Worlding of Agoraphobia by Mason Russell McWatters, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2013 Dedicated to Catherine, my eternal sunshine. Acknowledgements I want to thank Paul Adams for his many years of support, guidance and mentorship during my both my master’s and doctoral studies. I first encountered Paul when I registered for his “Place, Politics and Culture” graduate seminar during my second semester in the interdisciplinary Latin American Studies master’s program. Up until that point, I had felt placeless at UT, floating between history, government and sociology courses that left me feeling uninspired and intellectually homeless. However, as soon as I set foot in Paul’s seminar, I knew I had found my proverbial academic home in geography. His genuine enthusiasm and creativity as a teacher made the study of place, space and landscape seem limitless, inviting and full of possibility. Through his eyes, mundane practices like walking through a city or looking at advertising in the suburbs became transformed into infinitely fascinating reflections on culture and society. I can say without a doubt that I would have never become a geographer were it not for Paul’s creative inspiration. I can also say that I would have never found my way out of the doctoral labyrinth were it not for Paul’s unwavering support. As in the course of every doctoral student’s trajectory, there are times when one feels like one has reached a dead end or lost one’s way in the bramble bushes of academia. Every time I became lost or frustrated, Paul knew exactly what to say to put me back on track. As an advisor, Paul gave me the intellectual and creative freedom to pursue my own interests and develop my own ideas, while judiciously reining me in whenever I began to wander too far off course. The v combination of trust and care that he has shown me as my advisor has been extraordinary, and I will never forget it. In addition to being a highly original and accomplished academic, Paul is a genuinely good person; a rare combination in academics. Thank you for the many years of teaching, mentorship and support you have so generously given me. I also want to thank the remaining members of my committee. Thanks to Rebecca Torres for teaching me the practical ins and outs of academic publishing, and for generously granting students in her graduate research seminar access to her incredible vault of field research data from Mexico. In addition to being the hardest-working faculty member in the Department of Geography, Rebecca is a truly selfless individual who has given so much of her time and energy to help me progress in my career development. Thanks to Katie Stewart for designing and leading a transformative seminar, “Worlding,” that opened my eyes to the creative potential of descriptive writing in social and cultural studies. I feel extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn about sensing and interpreting the world from such a serenely gifted theorist/wordsmith as Katie. Thanks to Leo Zonn for allowing me the time and space to develop my understanding of such theorists as Heidegger and Lefebvre under his tutelage. Leo’s highly imaginative approach to geography serves as both a model and a justification for creative diversity within the geography department at UT. I know that were it not for Leo’s enthusiastic presence in the department, unorthodox studies in geography such as mine simply would not be possible. Thanks also to Steve Hoelscher, for introducing me to an entirely new vein of critical landscape studies that have greatly influenced my development as a vi geographer. Steve’s critical attention to detail and his unique perspective have both been invaluable to my doctoral work. His opinion is worth its weight in gold. Additionally, I want to extend my appreciation to the Department of Geography and the Environment and the Graduate School for nominating me for and awarding me a University Continuing Fellowship for the 2012-2013 academic year. This fellowship allowed me to focus exclusively on my dissertation over the past year, rather than divide my time and energy among the numerous graduate student duties and concerns which tend to distract from the main task at hand. I am extremely grateful for this privilege, knowing that it helped me craft a better dissertation in a quicker amount of time. I sincerely hope that, in an era when everything is being downsized or eliminated outright, the leaders of this great university continue to recognize the value of this fellowship program and remain committed to fully funding it for graduate students in the future. Finally I want to thank my parents for teaching me how to navigate the world, for instilling in me a strong sense of ethical purpose and direction, and for encouraging me follow my internal compass to wherever it may lead me. Words cannot express how much you two mean to me. I am so fortunate to have two of the most extraordinary and heroic people in the world as my parents. I owe everything I have to your love and generosity. vii The Unworlding and Worlding of Agoraphobia Mason Russell McWatters, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2013 Supervisor: Paul C. Adams It is not uncommon to hear people speak of their worlds coming undone during traumatic events of existential crisis or catastrophe. Yet, human geographers have largely neglected to attend to the phenomenal nature of this unbounded sense of ‘unworlding’ disintegration, as well as the wild material forces, agencies and passions at loose in the world that carry the unlimited potential to wreck the integrity of our worlds. This dissertation dedicates itself to critically thinking through the human experience of suffering to live through, confront and respond to unworlding disasters of sense that are materially capable of disrupting the functional and relational composition of our worlds. More concretely, in this dissertation I explore unworlding disasters of sense through the specific experiences of agoraphobic sufferers. While social scientists, including human geographers, have long been interested in what is sociologically, spatially and clinically exceptional about agoraphobia as a static predicament of being spatially bounded due to fear of public space, little to no consideration has been given to how agoraphobia primitively and phenomenally manifests itself as an eventful disordering of sense that unsettles not just one’s situated place in the world, but the entire relational order of the world itself. By critically attending to agoraphobia as an eventful viii disordering of sense that improperly deforms the structure of a human world, I seek to develop new ways to account for affective disasters of unworlding that carry the potential to overturn a proper sense of the world. Furthermore, I also speculate on the finite human ability to affirmatively respond to, make sense of, and impose limits on unworlding disasters that exceed one’s subjective ability to grasp, yet improperly and materially affect the entire scope of one’s lifeworld. In terms of its greater contribution to the discipline of geography, in this dissertation I strive to develop new understandings about the human condition of being in an eventful, material world that infinitely exceeds our ability to subjectively control or understand. By doing so, this dissertation aims to reaffirm the humanistic perspective as a theoretically valid and ethically critical way of practicing geography after the non- representational turn. ix Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction………………………………………………………………...1 Overview of work by chapter……………………………………………………..7 Chapter Two: Descriptive Outreach: A Methodology..…………………..……………...16 Writing as research method………………………………………………….......16 Responding to the call of non-representational theories…………………………19 Worlding descriptive outreach…………………………………………………...26 Methodology as an ethical practice of relating…………………………………31 Sourcing agoraphobic testimonies……………………………………………….34 The impersonal quality of the Commons………………………………...............38 Interrogating materialities of agoraphobic suffering ……………………………40 Constructing a heavy disguise…………………………………………………...42 Chapter Three: Re-Placing Existence as Being-with-the-world……........………………46 The spacing of (co)existence…………………………………………………….48 The being and unbecoming of subjectivity………………………………………50 Spacing out existence…………………………………………………………….57 Chapter Four: Weak Humanism…………………………………………………………74 A brief tour through the new geographies of association………………………79 Beyond social matters of concern………………………………………………..84 Non-eliminativistic basis for divergent modalities of existence…………………91 Towards a weak humanism………………………………………………………92 x Existence and being human……………………………………………………...96 Being human through limitation and vulnerability……………………………102 Humility, experience and