Climate Change as Liminal Experience—The Psychosocial Relevance of a Phenomenological Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Building on the author's background in phenomenology, this paper aims to introduce a liminality theoretical framework into the psychology of sustainability. Specifically, the paper introduces phenomenological notions of home-world and alien-world to clarify the process (theoretically rather than empirically conceived) of 'de-familiarization' of the (changing) environment in the face of spontaneous liminal experiences triggered by climate change.

This is a valuable aim. Liminality theory draws attention to spatial and temporal aspects of experience that are connected to unusual circumstances in which people find themselves in an indeterminate existential condition no longer what they were and not yet what they will be. There is no doubt that this has relevance to the transitions at play in climate change, and these concepts should be directly relevant to any psychology of sustainability.

The paper is greatly improved in its second version and benefits from engaging with some of the more recent theorisations of liminality in the social sciences and psychology. The section (2.2) on experiences of liminality and climate change makes a concrete contribution, and the remaining sections elaborate the relevant phenomenological concepts.

I nevertheless think that the paper would be greatly strengthened if the observations made in section 2.2 were carried through more systematically within the remaining sections. For example, there is a connection between the later arguments and the list of points noted in 2.2,  but that connection is left implicit and the paper would be more useful to its readers if this was more clearly explicated. One way of doing this, which I offer as a suggestion, would be to take forward more explicitly the observations about the relevance of Schutz's account of shock experiences that occur when moving between worlds. Schutz's has his own way of taking forward Husserl's 'life-world' concept and it's relations to ordinary 'work' (in Schutz's sense of that word) all conceived in terms of a well-worked-out notion of 'worlds'. Perhaps more than Husserl, Schutz's work is closer to social science and psychology and so makes the task of connecting phenomenological philosophy and social psychology a little less of a challenging leap. His influence on social constructionism also opens up another space of influence. This is just a suggestion, and other paths could achieve the same end (much in Karl Jaspers' work could achieve the same end for instance). Husserl, despite the work towards the end of his life, was for the most part resolutely philosophical (despite his indebtedness to the psychology of Brentano) - perhaps a virtue in its own sphere, but perhaps an obstacle for engaging contemporary psychology.

The paper would also benefit from more consideration of the relevance of the distinction between spontaneous and devised liminal experiences. It is assumed that 'awareness that the world around us is a changing environment' is sufficient to 'trigger' spontaneous liminal experiences that lead to the de-familiarizing effects addressed in the paper. But what sorts of experiences do the author's have in mind? Whilst it is clear that many people are now experiencing the effects of climate change first hand, for many it is still at the level of an 'idea' that is communicated to them through media of various sorts. So - if correct - it is not sufficient to imagine that spontaneous liminal experiences will always be 'triggered' by direct experience of a changing environment. This indeed might be quite rare. And here it might be valuable therefore to recognise that many experiences of climate change are devised experiences, mediated for example by movies and novels or by news reports and media discussions. If this paper is to succeed in its transformative aim of plugging a phenomenologically informed liminality theory into the psychology of climate change it will need to say a bit more about these kinds of issues. Also, the approach that is outlined will be deeply unfamiliar to most mainstream psychologists, even those who are progressive enough to be involved in research on ecological sustainability. So a few words about how this 'change' of psychology might be expected to occur would be valuable. Here it might be helpful to recognise that much of the philosophical work relevant to liminality scholarship participates in the articulation of an 'anthropology' in Kant's sense of an account of the full human being. Academic psychology has largely given up that ambition, and yet the current paper cannot help but involve itself in 'resuscitating' that anthropological level of general psychological inquiry.

A final point that was also noted in my initial review, the distinction between spontaneous and devised liminal experiences is not in fact Turner's (as wrongly stated at lines 108-10. Turner used the words 'unstaged' and 'staged'. Stenner introduced the 'spontaneous / devised' distinction in his 2017 book Liminality and experience as part of an argument to the effect that Turner's distinction is too dependent upon a theatre analogy when theatre is just one of many 'technologies' for devising liminal experience and the source of these technologies is much older than Classical Greece (the older ritual traditions from which Greek theatre likely arose had no stage and hence no concept of one).

Author Response

Thank you very much. It was a valuable contribution. Please see attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Great improvement to the work but still needs improvement to make it clearer for sustainability readers and generally easier to read for diverse audiences. 

Overall, it is a difficult paper to read, especially in the beginning (up to about section 2.2) and I struggled to understand what you were trying to say many times. There were a few times that it became clear and I was able to grasp what was being said, but that was often only brief. Only at times getting a grasp when it became clear at brief moments. You weaved in and out of concepts a lot. You used examples and failed to provide further context on why that example was used.

My main recommendation is you need to be clear and concise from the very beginning and limit the use of heavy literary texts and phrases.  I understand is necessary in some places, but takes away from a seamless read. 

There is mention of alien world and home world in the keywords and early introduction, however, the work fails to tie it in into the content of the paper till mid-way. 

Additionally, the grammar and sentence structure needs some further work. I will also recommend spell-check, for example global warming is spelled as global worming in line 60. 

In Line 32: You say 'The imminence of severe climate change, which is becoming increasingly publicly aware in the public eye'.  I would recommend this sentence be re-written as it is a tautology. Also see Lines 60 - 62; Line 135. 

Line 51: You write "In this sense Albrecht goes even further when he states that 51 the current global ecological crisis tends to be perceived as an existential threat, the effect 52 of which is eco-anxiety, defined as "the generalized sense that the ecological foundations 53 of existence are in the process of collapse". However, there is no mention of Albrecht prior to this statement. There is no context on Albrecht -  if cited, you should still say for example 'In reference [x], Albrecht...'. 

Author Response

Thank you very much. It was a valuable contribution. Please see attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 4)

I reviewed this manuscript already in the first round. The authors have now taken into account most of my suggestions (and those of the other reviewers') and they have significantly improved the article. They now engage adequately with earlier research and they tell the reader better what they are doing. The flow is better, but could still be significantly better. I strongly recommend the authors to work still with the introduction. When they start to engage with earlier scholarship, they should tell the reader that they are doing so. Now the structure is still a bit strange: anthropology sources are just discussed in the introduction and key concepts are defined partly only in sections 2 and 3.

 

Overall, the article brings new insights to the scientific discussion by applying important concepts from anthropology to furthen understanding about how environmental change disturbs people. I recommend “accept after minor revision”. The impact and clarity of the article will benefit from more attention to the flow and structure. The English needs some editing and there are several typos (e.g. p2 line 60 ”worming”, but many more).

 

Some minor comments:

 

line 61: can it be presumed that everybody know what Weltanschaung is?

 

line 76: clarify what you mean by “An unacceptable extension” (e.g. “If uncertainty becomes overly strong, it can lead to…”)

 

the use of “etc.” should be checked in the whole manuscript

 

p. 6 line 286: the term nomothetic should be explained more clearly.

 

line 290 “SOME significant”?

Author Response

Thank you very much. Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

The paper has been greatly improved (thank you!) and the aim and relevance towards the sustainability audience is clearly established. The writing is still a bit high-level and may be difficult to comprehend for audiences that are not technical or philosophically inclined, however, because the topic is one that addresses different worldviews, it allows for this writing approach. 

Author Response

Thank you for your contribution. It really helped establish the relevance of the paper towards the sustainability audience. Because we need theoretical background for future empirical research, the notions of home-world and alien-world needed extensive introduction. That is why the writing can be considered a little to philosophically inclined. 

We did a final spell check.  

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I found this a strange article and difficult to review.

First a positive comment. the article stages an interesting kind of 'meeting' between some of the literature on liminality and some of the literature on phenomenology, particularly that inspired by Husserl. This leads to a very unusual and unorthodox definition of liminality in terms of a contrast between the familiar and the strange, and this is developed by means of Husserl's distinction between Heimwelt (sometimes Nahwelt) and Fremndwelt. Although this is not how the anthropology literature understands the liminal (which classically is about symbolising a transition from one state or status to another), nevertheless is it is not irrelevant and raises interesting psychological questions. Although the relevance of this to climate change is developed in only a minimal and entirely unempirical way, it opens some interesting theoretical and empirical possibilities which are definitely worth exploring. 

In terms of presentation the article has two very different writing styles. Sections 1 and 2 (at least the first part of section 2) are written in a way that is quite hard for an English reader to understand. But sections 3 and 4 are written in a very different style and with much better English. The whole article, if accepted for publication, would need to be re-written like the second part (by the second author?). My hunch is that there is a junior author who has just encountered the liminality literature, and a senior author who has worked for a long time on Husserlian phenomenology. Currently they are not 'singing from the same hymn sheet'.... 

Now to some of the problems. A first problem is that it is a theoretical argument that presents itself in certain points as an empirical study. It is not an empirical study, and yet it has a method section, and mentions qualitative research, though there is no evidence of any qualitative research having been undertaken. I don't see why this paper needs a method section. This is quite a significant problem and means considerable re-writing to better express what the paper IS doing. 

The relevant liminality literature is not adequately covered or understood. I will give two examples. First, it is a major error to describe Van Gennep as having "challenged a term widely used in research on the anthropology of religious experience, that of 'rite of passage'" (84). In fact Van Gennep INTRODUCED the concept of rite of passage and this is pretty fundamental to anyone who professes an interest in liminality.

Second, although Victor Turner did distinguish what he called 'staged' and 'unstaged' liminal experiences, it was Paul Stenner who finessed this distinction in terms of 'devised' and 'spontaneous' liminal experience. This distinction is developed from line 145 onwards without referencing Stenner's (2017) Liminality and experience: a transdisciplinary approach to the psychosocial (Palgrave) (or his other psychological work in which this distinction is used). This book should be properly cited for three reasons: 1. because the authors have clearly read this author and been influenced by this approach (using the devised / spontaneous distinction without proper acknowledgement), 2. because this is an important text in terms of the use of liminality for psychosocial and psychological studies (being published before the two articles that are referenced for this purpose at lines 69/70) and 3. because this book also explores the relationship between phenomenology (in this case Schutz) and liminality scholarship, and hence is a precursor to the main task undertaken in the article under review. 

At other points in the article liminality is defined both as  ‘always temporary’ and as a ‘prolonged reign of uncertainty’. Again, here acknowledgement is needed of Szakolczai's extensive work on the paradox of permanent liminality which is widely cited in the current literature but missing. 

In sum, I think this paper does contain the ingredients for a significant contribution, but it needs to be significantly re-written taking the above problems into account. It should present itself for what it is: a theoretical contribution which is bringing certain phenomenological concepts into contact with a liminality literature and using this to make some relevant observations about climate change. The climate change aspect certainly needs further development as it currently appears as something of an afterthought. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Well written paper but it was difficult to follow. I would recommend simplifying the paper and clearly stating the objectives and methodology. It currently reads as an opinion piece rather than a scientific article. Here are some specific comments below.

Line 35: Cite sources to support growing concern and explain further how there is growing 35 concern to explore the relationship between .the self and the environment in terms of attitudes, emotions and behaviors.

Section 2.1 is very long-winded and can be more succinct. You need to relate it early on to climate change or you lose the reader. The treatise on liminality while good is too in-depth. 

Climate change is tied back at line 170, this is too far in the article for the reference. The paper is very heavy in the terminology and etymology, and loses the reader. Use the introduction to better clarify the need for the paper, gaps and objectives for the research. 

Lines 207 - 208: What approach, it is not clear.

The methodology is also not clear, is it a literature review? How was it approached and the parameters? Is it an observational study? None of these are stated in the methodology. 

Lines 281 - 282: Confusing sentence, rephrase and simplify.

Line 372: You say "I" instead of we

Reviewer 3 Report

I find this manuscript not to be of original one, and therefore I can not recommend it for publication.

Reviewer 4 Report

The article makes a worthwhile contribution to existing research literature by applying phenomenology and anthropology into the topic of experiencing climate change. The major arguments are highly interesting, although they are not as new as the authors seem to suggest. A major limitation of the article is that it does not really engage with earlier research about similar issues. Furthermore, the research questions, methods, and the flow of the article need clarification. I recommend the publication of the article if necessary revisions are made, and the scope of these required revisions falls somewhere between major and moderate. They are not minor changes, which is why I have chosen Reconsider after major revision. I will first discuss general needs for revision and then give more exact recommendations.

 

Aims and approaches of the article:

The authors must make more clear what they are doing in the article. Something like the following should be taken into account both in the abstract and in the introduction/methods: “We apply theories of liminality from anthropology into an interpretation of the lived experience of climate change, after which we apply phenomenology, especially Husserl’s thought, in order to understand more fully the challenges of reacting to a (life)world changed by global warming.”

 

The title has the word psychosocial in it and it should be discussed more in the article. For me, the psychosocial applicability of the results is clear, but it must be stated out and discussed in the article, at least in the Conclusions. I recommend engaging with psychosocial environmental research when doing this. For example, the results can help in efforts of environmental communication and advocacy, by helping to see why it is so difficult for many if not most people to react to climate change.

 

Structure:

The end of the current short introduction is problematic: it just states opinions/views of the authors. Discussion about the chosen approaches is needed there.

 

The current chapter 2 already includes interpretations and applications of research. I strongly recommend moving the current chapter 3, Methods, before chapter 2 (at least most parts of it). Then the new methods chapter should include a brief overview of how your inquiry proceeds: first you apply anthropology and argue why spontaneous liminality can be used to describe aspects of climate change etc.

 

As mentioned above, the end part of the article should include more discussion about the applicability of the results, in conversation with earlier research.

 

Using earlier research:

As it stands, the authors are making their arguments mostly by referencing original works by Husserl, Turner and Van Gennep, with some references to more contemporary works in place-related research (e.g. Donohoe and Ellard). The authors need to integrate existing and highly relevant research into their paper.

 

Phenomenology and the environment / climate:

* Howard, P. (2013). ‘Everywhere you go always take the weather with you’: Phenomenology and the pedagogy of climate change education. Phenomenology & Practice, 7(2), 3–18. https://doi.org/10.29173/pandpr21165

* Bryan E. Bannon (ed.), Nature and Experience: Phenomenology and the Environment, Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.

 

As for research which deals with similar issues but uses various terms, the situation is a bit more tricky. At least scholarship about solastalgia should be mentioned, since it directly studies people’s experiences of their home environments becoming partly alien. See Glenn Albrecht’s work and
* Galway, L. P., Beery, T., Jones-Casey, K., & Tasala, K. (2019). Mapping the Solastalgia Literature: A Scoping Review Study. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 16(2662). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16152662

 

The concept of uncanny is mentioned in the article and the existing scholarship about the uncanny character of a world changed by climate change / environmental change should be mentioned. See Timothy Morton’s use of the concept and Antti Saari’s research. I was also reminded of Bill McKibben’s concept and book Eaarth, referring to a changed world.

 

As for applying anthropological theories into environmental matters, some sources must also be included. See e.g.

https://www.academia.edu/11590382/Ritual_Time_and_Space_A_Liminal_Age_and_Religious_Consciousness

More specific recommendations and needs for revision

If not specified, the numbers refer to lines of the manuscript.

 

pages 1-2: More sources are needed, and more recent ones.

 

After the first paragraph:

Lawrance, E. L., Thompson, R., Newberry Le Vay, J., Page, L., & Jennings, N. (2022). The Impact of Climate Change on Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing: A Narrative Review of Current Evidence, and its Implications. International Review of Psychiatry, 34(5), 443–498. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540261.2022.2128725

 

For reference [2], add a recent source, such as

Ojala, M., Cunsolo, A., Ogunbode, C. A., & Middleton, J. (2021). Anxiety, Worry, and Grief in a Time of Environmental and Climate Crisis: A Narrative Review. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 46(1). https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-022716

 

For reference [3], add a more recent source, such as

Heeren, A., Mouguiama-Daouda, C., & Contreras, A. (2022). On climate anxiety and the threat it may pose to daily life functioning and adaptation: A study among European and African French-speaking participants. Climatic Change, 173(1), 15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-022-03402-2

 

Rewrite from “Hence…”, and tell that you are interested in exploring how this situation could be seen from the point of view of liminality.

 

“once familiar natural environment that is now gradually becoming alienated from us”: link somewhere in the paper the concept of solastalgia with this.

 

Clarify the sentence before reference [9]. Split it into several sentences.

 

The final paragraph on page 2: are you explaining van Gennep or making your own arguments? Clarify and support with references.

 

p.3 line 129: “In conclusion, liminality is perceived” -> by who? Clarify.

 

line 130: it is an over-exaggeration to state “always unmanageable”. Rephrase.

 

Turner’s approach is not depicted here as clearly as it should be. The authors focus here on crisis-related forms of liminality and disregard other forms of it such as pilgrimages, which Turner studied extensively. The authors should mention that Turner used the concept of liminality to refer to various kinds of it and they should state that they have chosen to focus in their wordings on the crisis-related ones. I also feel that they are giving quite a lot of prominence on the role of the relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world in their interpretation of Turner’s thought.

In other words, the content on lines 145-148 should inform the writing on lines 113-128.

 

line 153: “to FULLY anticipate”? Cf. the context of climate change, where some developments are predicted with much certainty, but the local manifestations still include much unpredictability

 

line 160: link your mention of uncanny with related research (see above)

 

line 200: explain nomothetic to a broader audience

 

209-222: this section must be linked with earlier research. See research articles about phenomenology and ecological issues, and there would be much other literature, too, about the lived experience of climate change: see e.g.

Abbott, Dina, and Gordon Wilson. The Lived Experience of Climate Change: Knowledge, Science and Public Action. Springer, 2015.

 

Page 5: there is much research literature in various fields exploring how people are shaped by their natural environments and vice versa. At least some of that should be cited.

 

268-9: “Because our presuppositions are always historically situated, the home world is already given to each of us.”

Please clarify already here briefly the role of subjective interpretations in relation to this givenness (see the more clear description on lines 331-2).

 

270 “natural world”: please clarify that you wish to focus here on the natural world. Otherwise, the concept refers to the whole nearworld.

 

276-7: “emerge continuously in the unity of a common history”. Please clarify what you mean by “the unity of a common history”. How would you relate this to all the fragmentation in the contemporary world?

 

280 “reaches describes”, omit one

 

289 “we are constantly aware” -> are people truly so? The claim seems overly strong for me.

 

338 “always be FIRST interpreted”; people can accommodate over time, can’t they?

 

372 Check pronoun: we instead of I.

 

381-2 Has it not already become such an event for many people?

 

420-2 Work with this sentence and check the causal claim. Perhaps: “world changed by global warming is not experienced ONLY as scientific…”?

 

423 “as PARTLY an alien natural world”? Are you truly claiming that it becomes totally an alien world? Line 426 formulates this better.

 

431 Since humans are causing climate change (as we use the concept), reformulate slightly. “world that is becoming alien to us” or something similar.

 

433-5 This could be said much more simply.

 

477 + transformation?

 

479 “understood ONLY”; for some people, as you point out earlier in the article, scientific thinking is part of their tools to approach their lifeworld.

 

Add in the Conclusions at least some discussion about the practical psychosocial applicability of your results. I recommend linking that with the concepts of solastalgia and “lived experience of climate change”.