Unconsciousness

From Geography

Anthony Giddens made a distinction between three forms of consciousness in his Structuration Theory. These three forms are practical consciousness, discursive consciousness and unconsciousness (Giddens, 1984, p. 7). Consciousness is the awareness of the context of actions by an agent. Motivating oneself for an action is primarily bound to the unconscious.

One form of consciousness is unconsciousness whereby no knowledge is used. Mechanisms of repression separate unconsciousness from discursive consciousness and practical consciousness.

An unconscious action is an action without a deliberate intention. The actor making the unconscious action did not have a goal in mind to fullfill that action. An example will help to illuminate the concept. Suppose a person flicks the light switch on a night, to turn the light on. As a consequence, a criminal is startled and flees. In his flee the criminal is apprehended by the police and sentenced to spend one year in jail. In this example the conscious action the individual makes is to turn on the light switch, since it was his intention to turn the light on. An unconscious and unintended consequence was to startle the criminal, which would lead to his arrest. The individual swichting the light on had no knowledge of a criminal in his surroundings and thus had no intention of startling him and getting him apprehended (Giddens, 1984, p. 10).

References

Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles.

Lippuner, R. & Werlen, B. (2009). Structuration Theory. In International Encyclopedia for Human Geography. Elsevier.

Published by --CasparEngelen 21:35, 17 December 2011 (CET) & Natasja van Lieshout

Edited by Bert Hegger on September 19th 2012.