When the Skin of the Day Has Been Cast into the Hedge

• In Event: Roundtable Session 45
  In Roundtable Session: (Re)framing Theory: Foucault, Education, and Subjectivity

Abstract

The decision to leave the comforts of the familiar is only partially understood by structural research models. By contrast, we explore the lived meaning of the experience of home-town-leaving. First, we explore our basic research strategy—a phenomenologically-oriented method that allows language, in the words of Heidegger, to tell us “about the essence of a thing, provided that we respect language’s own essence.” In the following sections, we use this strategy to uncover the meaning of “hometown.” We then explore the phenomenon of leaving, in order to work out the full implications of our theme. We conclude the paper itself with an example, and connections to the academic literature that seeks to understand in particular rural youth’s migratory decisions.

Authors

• Juanita Beatriz Bautista Guerra, Michigan State University

• Kyle A. Greenwalt, Michigan State University