Search results

"Cover" -- "Half Title" -- "Dedication" -- "Title Page" -- "Copyright Page" -- "Table of Contents" -- "Acknowledgements" -- "Introduction: Notes on Stories, Selves and Spaces" -- "1 What in the World is Agoraphobia?" -- "2 'Joking Apart. .. ': The Negotiation of Group Boundaries Through Humour" -- "3 Fear and Trembling in the Mall: Kierkegaard and Consumer/Consuming Spaces" -- "4 'Putting on a Face': Sartre, Goffman and Agoraphobic Anxiety in Social Space" -- "5 A Phenomenology of Fear: Merleau-Ponty and Agoraphobic Life-Worlds" -- "6 Pregnant Pauses: Agoraphobic Embodiment and the Limits of (Im)pregnability" -- "7 'All in the Mind ... ?': Analysing the Subject of 'Self-Help'" -- "Conclusion: Re/solution of Spatial Identities" -- "Bibliography

Specific phobias of natural objects, such as moths, spiders and snakes, are both common and socially significant, but they have received relatively little sociological attention. Studies of specific phobias have noted that embodied experiences of disgust are intimately associated with phobic reactions, but generally explain this in terms of objective qualities of the object concerned and/or evolutionary models. We draw on the work of Kolnai, Douglas and Kristeva to provide an alternative phenomenological and culturally informed account of the complex links between pervasive social categories and their emotional embodiment and expression in phobic individuals.