Deathworlds to Lifeworlds

especially powerful when "Deathworlds" - physical or cultural places that no longer sustain life - are transformed into "lifeworlds" through collaborative sharing, even when (or, perhaps, especially when) the sharing is among strangers across different cultures. The contributors share a truly wide range of human experiences, from the death of a child to ecological destruction, in offering ways to affirm life in the face of what may seem to be hopeless death-affirming challenges."



-Richard P. Appelbaum, Ph.D., is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus and former MacArthur Foundation Chair in Global and International Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also a founding Professor at Fielding Graduate University, where he heads the doctoral concentration in Sustainability Leadership.

"Deathworlds is a love letter for the planet-our home. By documenting places that no longer sustain life, the authors collectively pull back the curtain on these places, rendering them meaningful by connecting what ails us with what ails the world."

-Katrina S. Rogers, Ph.D., conservation activist and author

"Deathworlds to Lifeworlds represents collaboration among Fielding Graduate University, the University of Lodz (Poland), and the University of the Virgin Islands. Students and faculty from these universities participated in seminars on transformative phenomenology and developed rich phenomenologically based narratives of their experiences or others'. These phenomenological protocol narratives creatively modify and integrate with everyday experience the conceptual frameworks of Husserl, Schutz, Heidegger, Habermas, and others. The diverse protocol authors demonstrate how phenomenological reflection is transformative first by revealing how Deathworlds, which lead to physical, mental, social, or ecological decline, imperil invaluable lifeworlds. Deathworlds appear on lifeworld fringes, such as ext