Lonely Places and Lonely People

TY - JOUR

T1 - Lonely Places and Lonely People

AU - Ratcliffe, Matthew James

N1 - © The Author(s) 2023

PY - 2023/5/30

Y1 - 2023/5/30

N2 - Feeling lonely, being a lonely person, and living through lonely times can all be construed in terms of the emotional experiences of individuals. However, we also speak of lonely places. Sometimes, a place strikes us as lonely even when we do not feel lonely ourselves. On other occasions, finding a place lonely also involves feeling lonely, isolated, and lost. In this paper, I reflect on the phenomenological structure of loneliness by addressing what it is to experience a place as lonely. I suggest that approaching loneliness in this way can help us to see how it involves not merely the lack or absence of something but, more specifically, the sense of being unable to access social and personal possibilities that may still appear accessible to others.

AB - Feeling lonely, being a lonely person, and living through lonely times can all be construed in terms of the emotional experiences of individuals. However, we also speak of lonely places. Sometimes, a place strikes us as lonely even when we do not feel lonely ourselves. On other occasions, finding a place lonely also involves feeling lonely, isolated, and lost. In this paper, I reflect on the phenomenological structure of loneliness by addressing what it is to experience a place as lonely. I suggest that approaching loneliness in this way can help us to see how it involves not merely the lack or absence of something but, more specifically, the sense of being unable to access social and personal possibilities that may still appear accessible to others.

U2 - 10.1007/s11245-023-09931-4

DO - 10.1007/s11245-023-09931-4

M3 - Article

SN - 1572-8749

JO - TOPOI

JF - TOPOI

ER -