Postphenomenology unchained : rethinking human-technology-world relations as Enroulement

Abstract

Humans experience various phenomena as threats to their biophysical integrity. Airborne viruses, leaking radioactivity, or extreme weather conditions are three examples for this. In these scenarios the focus is not unilaterally directed towards the vulnerable body but also towards a world that can potentially become hazardous and out of balance. At the same time, technology comes into play, enabling us to access such an obtruding world including its activities, forces, and agents but also to shield humans and their vulnerable bodies from potential injuries and harm. The contribution develops an approach to investigate human-technology-world relations based on Merleau-Ponty’s concept of Enroulement unfolded in The Visible and the Invisible. This concept releases a non-linear, dynamic multi-relationality in which world, human, and technology become relevant as situating as well as situated co-constitutors of such relations enveloped in a permanent process of coiling. We discuss our approach as an alternative to a linear relational perspective as found in the postphenomenological concept of technological mediation. With the approach of Enroulement it becomes evident that the situated-situating world is more than something to be technologically mediated, while technology situated in the world but also co-constituting our world is more than a mediator. First, the article emphasizes the notion of the world based on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and in a critical examination of postphenomenological approaches. Second, it unfolds the concept of Enroulement involving human, world, and technology. Third, it focuses on shielding technologies required by vulnerable bodies and an intervening world. Fourth, it illustrates the suggested approach with two examples in which humans and technologies are exposed to extreme forces and material activities: combat flying and dealing with radioactivity.