[first draft of a chapter prepared for A Handbook on Well-being, edited by Kathleen Galvin (London: Routledge, forthcoming, 2017)] Well-being and Phenomenology: Lifeworld, Natural Attitude, Homeworld and Place David Seamon Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas USA Abstract In this chapter, I draw upon the phenomenological concepts of lifeworld, natural attitude, homeworld and place to clarify what human-immersion-in-world and lived obliviousness might mean for research in well-being. To provide a real-world context for my argument, I present three narrative accounts of ordinary and out-of-the-ordinary place experiences written by interior designer Jane Barry (2012); British-African novelist Doris Lessing (1984); and sociologist Eric Klinenberg (2002). Using these three examples as evidence, I contend that place is an integral, non- contingent aspect of human life and helps to explain why well-being can typically be out of sight and thus not recognized as a significant dimension of one’s day-to-day experience. I conclude that, because of the always- already-present reciprocity between human-immersion-in-place and lived obliviousness, professional efforts to enhance well-being might sometimes be more successfully accomplished indirectly by changing aspects of place, including creative neighborhood design and planning that facilitate place attachment and a strong sense of environmental belonging. Introduction Though ‘well-being’ is defined in a wide range of ways (Atkinson, Fuller and Painter 2012; Kearns and Andrews 2010; Ziegler and Schwanen 2011), the concept is most often associated with ‘human flourishing’ (Fleuret and Atkinson 2007: 109) and ‘optimal psychological experience and functioning’ (Deci and Ryan 2008:1). In this chapter, I consider what a phenomenological perspective might contribute to research on well-being by examining two central phenomenological principles—first, human-immersion-in-world; and, second, lived obliviousness. Human-immersion-in-world refers to the phenomenological recognition that human beings are inescapably conjoined with and enmeshed in their world, which here refers to the person or group’s sphere of action, understanding and experience, both firsthand and vicarious. That people are always already caught up in and enjoined with their world suggests that the well-being of an individual or group cannot be discussed apart from lived relationships with their worlds, including the places in which they find themselves. In other words, individual well-being and place well-being mutually presuppose and afford each other. In this sense, one might more accurately speak of the well-being-of-person-or-group-in-place (DeMiglio and Williams 2008; Malpas 1999; Relph 1976; Seamon 2014; Stefanovic 2008). As a second relevant phenomenological principle, lived obliviousness refers to the recognition that well-being is not typically an explicitly experienced dimension of most peoples’ everyday experiences; rather, life simply unfolds more or less automatically, and one may not be aware of or reflect upon any stressful, untoward, or undermining elements of daily living that, to an outsider, might indicate a lack of well-being. For sure, human beings often experience self- conscious moments when, on one hand, they feel positive and hopeful about their lives or, on the other hand, feel negative and wish their life might be better. More typically, however, life simply happens. People ‘just get on with things’ and don’t regularly give self-conscious attention to the lived fact that life might be otherwise (Moran 2014; Seamon 1979: 99-105).