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There has been longstanding theoretical and philosophical debate over the nature of individual subjectivity and, by implication, intersubjectivity. Language acquisition and shared understandings are among the many aspects of lived experience that are framed in terms of intersubjective relations. One of the pivotal aspects of this discourse involves the problem of how to interpret the meaning of the "person" or "self" relative to the act of "entering into relation." Intersubjectivity can be understood as a mode of relation ">between separate pre-given actors, as contrasted with processual interpretations of co-emergence or co-existentiality. Regardless, "being" is always-already "co-being." This chapter makes the point that intersubjectivity is essential to a relational interpretation of both community and collective agency.

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-56042-1_8

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