Against RecognitionThe idea of the struggle for recognition features prominently in the work of various thinkers from Charles Taylor and Jurgen Habermas to Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser who are concerned with the centrality of issues of identity in modern society. In differing ways, these thinkers use the idea of recognition to develop accounts of the individual which are opposed to the asocial individualism of liberal thought and to the abstraction of much work on the subject. The idea of recognition expresses the notion that individuality is an intersubjective phenomenon formed through pragmatic interactions with others. By highlighting the intersubjective features of individuality, the idea of recognition has both descriptive and normative content and it has important implications for a feminist account of gender identity. In this brilliant and original book, Lois McNay argues that the insights of the recognition theorists are undercut by their reliance on an inadequate account of power. The idea of recognition relies on an account of social relations as extrapolations of a primal dyad of interaction that overlooks the complex ways in which individuality is connected to abstract social structures in contemporary society. Using Bourdieu's relational sociology, McNay develops an alternative account of individual agency that connects identity to structure. By focussing on issues of gender identity and agency, she opens up new pathways to move beyond the oppositions between material and cultural feminisms. |
Contents
Against Recognition | 1 |
1 Recognition and Misrecognition in the Psyche | 24 |
2 The Politics of Recognition | 61 |
3 Narrative and Recognition | 96 |
4 Recognition and Redistribution | 126 |
Identity | 162 |
Notes | 198 |
Bibliography | 209 |
Acknowledgements | 238 |
Against Recognition | 1 |
1 Recognition and Misrecognition in the Psyche | 24 |
2 The Politics of Recognition | 61 |
3 Narrative and Recognition | 96 |
4 Recognition and Redistribution | 126 |
Identity | 162 |
Notes | 198 |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract account of agency account of power action analysis argues aspects autonomy Benhabib Benjamin Bourdieu Butler Cambridge claims communicative ethics complex concept context critical critique cultural debate dialogical difference dimensions discourse discourse ethics domination dualism dynamic economic effects embodied identity emotions example experience expression feminist forms formulation gender identity Habermas Habermas’s Habermasian idea of habitus idea of narrative idea of recognition identity and agency illocutionary implications indeterminacy individuals interaction interpellation intersubjective Judith Butler Lacanian language Lara lifeworld linguistic logic mediated misrecognition moral Nancy Fraser narrative identity nature normative notion object relations theory objectivism objectivist ontology of recognition oppression paradigm perspective phenomenology politics of recognition position poststructural power relations practice primal problematic psychic psychoanalysis psychological rational reflexivity sexual Skeggs Slavoj Žižek social relations social structures social theory sociological speech acts status struggle for recognition subject formation symbolic Taylor thought tion tive types understanding University Press women Žižek