ABSTRACT
The question of dwelling is central to human life, in general, and political philosophy in particular. This takes on particular existential significance in the Anthropocene Age, when human beings and millions of other species are displaced and threatened with extinction—with being unhoused from our only habitat. While the question of dwelling is of concern to all human beings (and other species), this chapter builds on the previous chapter by addressing this question from a psychoanalytic philosophical perspective. In so doing, this chapter enters into the wider interdisciplinary discussions about what it means to dwell politically and economically, given the realities of climate change. An overview of dwelling and its attributes are illuminated, which includes brief discussions regarding some of the perennial existential and political challenges associated with dwelling that are framed in psychoanalytic terms. That is, a psychoanalytic lens can illuminate some of the unconscious or unstated aspects of human dwelling. Once this foundation has been constructed, I introduce a psychoanalytic, developmental political perspective vis-à-vis dwelling, which builds on the psychoanalytic political philosophy of Chapter 1. This section of the chapter portrays what is necessary for actualizing one’s experience of dwelling, the transition from pre-political to political dwelling and, by contrast, what contributes to experiences of being displaced or psychosocially unhoused. In the last section, I depict the Anthropocene Age as a crisis of dwelling for human beings and other species, identifying several key systemic apparatuses that privilege human dwelling, while undermining the dwelling of other species (and Othered human beings) and, paradoxically and tragically, undermining the present and future dwelling of human beings.
