ABSTRACT
The phenomenological stranger has been conceptualised in terms of the meeting of co-present actors and predicated on face-to-face interaction. During Simmel and Schutz’s time letter writing, telegraphs, radio and the telephone were being used as dominant forms of communication across time and space. Although Schutz mentions different types of electronic mediations, he did not apply them to situations of human contact and to the realms of human relations (Zhao, 2004, pp. 97-8). In particular, Simmel and Schutz did not contemplate how via letter writing, the telegraph, radio, television and telephony social interaction of co-present, disembodied strangers could be possible, nor did they examine how strangeness could be conceptualised differently as a consequence of different communication technologies (Virnoche, 2002). In contrast, the burgeoning literature on computerised technology and cyberspace has led to a rethinking of the nature of subjectivity and social interaction, and concomitantly the figure of the stranger has also become an object of inquiry.
