Abstract
Inclusion and exclusion in the functionally differentiated society
The argument of this thesis reflects three main concerns. First of all how is inclusion and exclusion generated in a modern functionally differentiated society? The thesis explores how inclusion and exclusion is experienced and communicated through the narration and life stories of two male Iraqi refugees residing in Denmark. Using the point of view and the semantics of Niklas Luhmann, Martin Buber, and Edmund Husserl and playfully combining these with poetry and metaphors the aim is to bring forth, not only the semantics of the functionally differentiated society, but also that of man in the environment of systems. The assumption is that the life stories so to speak bear testimony of the evolution of society even though communications as well as semantics from former more segmented and stratified societies still exist in narrations and communication.
The life story analyses of temporal, social and functional dimensions are used to illustrate the horizon of meaning and hereby bring to attention how individuals construct narrations not only of themselves as individuals, but also as members of a family and of society. It seems that the inclusion in the functional differentiated society to some degree shifts towards an more individualized point of view on society and hereby overrules the semantics of us replacing it with the semantics of me.
The function of the system of social help is regarded as turning exclusion into new inclusions, hereby solving the problem of exclusion in society. However the codes of the functional systems seem at times to be overruled by communication connected to former societies and hereby causing noise and fixating an us/them dichotomy hard to overcome in continued communication, causing the communication to terminate or create conflict.
Furthermore the thesis has found that the ambition to bring forth man in the environment by combining phenomenology and the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann has been successful. Playful use of poetry and literature creates an expanded possibility to connect to the life stories of Awad and Reza, and contributes furthermore to illustrate the embodied constructions of self in the narrations.
Finally the thesis asks whether or not it is not so much the lack of inclusion in functional systems as maybe the unintended creation of noise in communication that may lead to self exclusion from different forms of systems and organisations.
Keywords: Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, Marianne Horsdal, life stories, inclusion and exclusion, social work theories, refugees.