Confinement beyond Walls: Urban Phobias, Hikikomori and the Literally Locked
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Does the experience of confinement correspond to a loss of horizon? In order to answer to this question we will consider three different conditions: claustrophobia, hikikomori and imprisonment. Claustrophobia is generally conceived as a fear of being trapped where the subject is more permeable than the average person to feel ‘locked’ (self-inflicted involuntary loss of horizon). Hikikomori is a phenomena originally disclosed in Japan, that since then it is known to take place in other countries, where mostly teenagers refuse themselves to leave their room/ their house (voluntary loss of horizon). Imprisonment is a measure traditionally used as penalty for attested crimes (community-inflicted involuntary loss of horizon). We will take as main reference, key concepts of Austrian philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938): ‘horizon’ (Horizont), deeply intertwined with that of ‘identity’ (subjectivity); ‘doxic certainty’; ‘surrounding environment’ (Umwelt) later reworked as ‘life-world’ (Lebenswelt)—built gradually through Lebensumwelt(‘surrounding world of life’) and Lebenspraxis (‘life-praxis’)—denoting the way the members of one or more social groups use (cultures, linguistic communities) to structure the world into objects. We aim at clarifying: Why is it that confinement beyond walls (voluntary or involuntary) is experienced as discomfort and perceived as penalty? How does a wall (the object) when experienced as confinement affect one’s sense of identity? When we share the same values we experience a shared horizon; community inflicts confinement as penalty when it attests loss of values and therefore inflicts loss of horizon; and hikikomori and claustrophobia are an unconscious and conscious expression, respectively, of ‘against values’ ie. the emerging of a virtual horizon. In the case of imprisonment, in what way can a perceptive restriction of perceived horizon be regenerative? Can the surrounding environment of imprisonment generate a rebuilt identity?