Illuminating the vernacular of inequity: recognition, interaction ritual theory, and microaggressions

Abstract

ABSTRACT While it would seem that the framework of “the politics of recognition” is perfectly primed to enable contributions to the necessary discussion about why and how mundane interactions are politically important, the most prominent recognition theories have defaulted on this promise. In this dialogue contribution, I explain how the inability of Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth’s influential recognition theories to illuminate the role of “the vernacular” in the reproduction of inequity and in the transformation of society – aspects that recognition can and should illuminate – is tied to the theories’ sociological weaknesses. Recognition theory needs better sociological grounding, and I nominate interaction ritual theory as a potentially productive complement. Informed by contemporary work on interaction ritual, future recognition theory can contribute to public and academic debates about microaggressions and other aspects of the vernacular of inequity that are still often unjustly dismissed.