Tensed toward the collective: A Simondonian perspective on human experience in context

Abstract

In this article, we use Gilbert Simondon’s work on psychic and collective individuation in order to develop a process theoretical framework for studying human experience in context. We argue that experience should be conceptually understood as coextensive with the processual becoming of an individual human being. We further develop this by taking into account two complementary trajectories of becoming: psychic individuation and collective individuation. We will show how this can help us to understand the situatedness and collectivity of human experience.