Displacement and Climate Disrupted Subjects A Phenomenological Reading of Agamben
Abstract
The displacement of the bodily subject under conditions of forced migration, particularly in the context of climate-induced exile, invites a phenomenological inquiry into the lived experience of dislocation. Phenomenology foregrounds the body as the primary site of being-in-the-world; yet, when uprooted, the embodied subject undergoes a radical rupture in the continuity of place, memory, and identity. The loss of familiar spatial and social coordinates is not merely geographical but ontological, destabilizing the structures through which subjectivity is constituted. In this frame, displacement is not only a matter of movement across borders but a reconfiguration of the self’s relation to the world. The phenomenological body, once anchored in a horizon of meaning, becomes estranged; its gestures, rhythms, and sensory engagements are disrupted by the absence of a sustaining lifeworld. The subject’s sense of identity is fractured, caught between the memory of belonging and the uncertainty of alien space. Agamben’s notion of homo sacer and the state of exception sharpens this analysis. Climate refugees often exist within juridical vacuums, stripped of political recognition yet governed through humanitarian management. Their bodily presence is both included in the global order through mechanisms of control and excluded from the full rights of political community, embodying Agamben’s paradox of “inclusive exclusion". From an ontological perspective, displacement reveals the fragility of the body’s embeddedness in political and spatial orders. The dislocated subject becomes a threshold figure, existing in suspension between life as zoē (bare existence) and bios (politically qualified life). This convergence of phenomenology and Agamben underscores that climate-induced displacement is not only a humanitarian crisis but also a profound disruption of subjectivity and identity. Recognizing the displaced body as a site of contested ontology demands political frameworks that restore agency, visibility, and the conditions for human flourishing.
Article Details
- How to Cite
-
Manas , M. S. (2025). Displacement and Climate Disrupted Subjects: A Phenomenological Reading of Agamben. Dia-Noesis: A Journal of Philosophy, 18(2), 271–286. https://doi.org/10.12681/dia.43461
- Section
- Articles
