Taking the absurd seriously

Abstract

A focus on the absurd reveals points of tangency between political economy and humanistic geographical approaches. I argue that capitalism’s contradictions have broadened and deepened absurd phenomenal experiences, the reflexive internalization of which – in processes of reification or self-alienation – has recursive effects on the constitution of societies. The paradoxes mobilized as part of dialectical reason provide a means of taking the absurd seriously in our emotional and intellectual responses to it. These arguments are illustrated with respect to the consumption of stuff. In conclusion, I note how the absurd poses unsettling questions for human geographical theory and praxis.

From one flooding crisis to the next: Negotiating ‘the maybe’ in unequal Karachi

“…The politics of the maybe signals not only the underlying contradictions of capitalism (Phelps, 2018) but also the messy fragmentations and violence that define the postcolonial state in Pakistan. Historically, the enunciation of state sovereignty has been tied to the empowerment of the military (Jalal, 1999).…”

“…In the Karachi context, this politics, what we refer to as the politics of the maybe, is ‘absurd’. Taking the absurd as an experience of contradictions tied to the condition of modernity and capitalism as conceptualised in sociology and geography (Bowker, 2013; Phelps, 2018), the absurd politics manifests in everyday experiences of flooding in Karachi. The flooding itself is a moment that brings all the contradictions of governance, rule, and subjectivity in Karachi to the fore.…”

In Transit: Placelessness and the Absurd in the Writings of Anna Seghers

“…Esslin describes the absurd as showing the world as "an incomprehensible place" (4), "the irrationality of the human condition and the illusion of what we thought was its apparent logical structure" (5). In asking us to take the absurd seriously, Phelps (2018) treats this apprehension of senselessness as a symptom of the alienation produced by daily life in the jaws of the contradictions of capitalism. In this paper I want to suggest another possibility: that one might express a sense of absurdity when faced with an oppression one does not want to dignify as legal or legitimate.…”