UKZN–UNIZULU Philosophy Seminar Series, Wed 18 Feb: Kayleigh Timmer, 'Out of Sync with Oneself: A Critical-Phenomenological Analysis of Alienation and Fatigue in Situations of Oppression'
M. Whitaker
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UKZN–UNIZULU Philosophy Seminar Series
Wednesday, 18 February 2026 @ 14h00–15h30
Out of Sync with Oneself: A Critical-Phenomenological Analysis of Alienation and Fatigue in Situations of Oppression
Kayleigh Timmer
Stellenbosch University
Abstract:
Alienation and fatigue are frequently recognised as features of oppression; alienation as a cause of oppression, fatigue as an effect of living within and negotiating with a situation of oppression. However, in analyses, these features tend to be treated separately. I argue that, when analysing situations of oppression, alienation and fatigue should instead be considered in conjunction, as they are co-constituting. Specifically, I argue that fatigue in itself is alienating, such that when it is experienced as an effect of oppression it amplifies one’s alienation, exacerbating one’s experience of oppression, thereby causing further fatigue.
Using Rahel Jaeggi’s (2005) conception of alienation and Emmanuel Levinas’ (1947) conception of fatigue, I will show that alienation and fatigue are mutually constitutive. Jaeggi conceives of alienation as an inhibited or deficient relation of appropriation. More specifically, alienation is an inhibited capacity constitute the self through genuine, practical relations with oneself, others, and the world. Fatigue, according to Levinas, is an existential state rather than a physiological one, in which one is weary of the effort involved in being. I will argue, first, that Jaeggi and Levinas’ analyses are theoretically compatible and, second, that Levinasian fatigue, through causing a lag between our intentions and actions and a propensity towards indifference, inhibits relations of appropriation and is thus alienating.
Finally, I will demonstrate the co-constitutive relationship between alienation and fatigue by applying the above framework to three classic existential accounts of alienation in situations of oppression. These are Simone de Beauvoir’s account of women’s oppression in The Second Sex (1949) and of the elderly in Old Age (1970) and Frantz Fanon’s analysis of alienation in the racialised, colonised subject in Black Skin, White Masks (1952).
Author Bio:
Kayleigh Timmer is a PhD student at Stellenbosch University and is currently a contract lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her areas of interest include feminist philosophy, broadly construed, existentialism, phenomenology, Critical Theory, and the philosophy of emotions. Her current areas of research include existential analyses of femininity, complicity, and bad faith; various facets of the affective experience of gender-based violence; and the relationship between social media and subversive socio-political praxis.
For any queries, please contact:
Gontse J. Lebakeng (Leba...@unizulu.ac.za),
Monique Whitaker (Whit...@ukzn.ac.za), or
Jason van Niekerk (vanNi...@unizulu.ac.za)