Why phenomenology and social construction?

Perhaps the first question the reader may consider when looking at the title of this book is simply put: “What is the phenomenology of the social construction of crime?” Though undoubtedly many readers are already familiar with the conceptual framework of phenomenology and social construction as specific philosophical approaches or as theoretical vehicles by which to describe a broad variety of phenomena which fall under the purview of the social sciences, it is probably much less likely, however, that these same readers have ever seen these two approaches combined in the way suggested by the title. For some, such a combination may appear philosophically contradictory, given that phenomenology is often commonly viewed as a structuralist or Cartesian account of human experience that is defined by its privileging of the subject or a perceiving consciousness (Weinberg, 2014). Social construction, on the other hand, though also privileging the subjective point of view, rejects any purely structuralist biases, and retains a very specific engagement with the social world, albeit from a very specific subjective point of reference (Berger and Luckmann, 1967). How, then, does such a joining of these two seemingly incapable theoretical approaches make sense?

It is argued here that not only are phenomenology and social construction philosophically compatible approaches by which to explore the phenomena of crime, but that any perceived contradictions between these two approaches has more to do with the misreading of phenomenology, intentional or otherwise, then it does with any genuine theoretical contradiction between these two approaches. In its most general sense, the social construction of reality reflects a type of phenomenological rendering of lived-experience insofar as our access to social knowledge is always perspectival and social, situated within a very specific frame of reference.

The integration of social construction within the phenomenological tradition reflects an approach that seeks to situate the “sociology of knowledge” within a specific epistemological and ontological frame of reference. Though it is certainly true that Berger and Luckmann (1967, p 19) sought to avoid the question of philosophy, and actually state that their intention “… is not to engage in philosophy,” it remains equally true that the sociology of knowledge can never truly be separate from these epistemological and ontological concerns as they relate to human experience and meaning.