Misrecognition of the Rural White Working Class

Abstract

While some have called poor rural white Americans the “original underclass,” this group is largely left out of discussions of oppressed or marginalized groups in America. Even so, this group is deserving of being seen as an oppressed or marginalized group; a group which has been denied recognition just as others have been throughout American history. Throughout this chapter I hope to show that the rural white working class is a group that suffers misrecognition, and, that they should be recognized. I will attempt to demonstrate this primarily using the literature on recognition, as well as recent literature regarding the plight of the rural white working class in America such as The Politics of Resentment, White Trash, and Hillbilly Elegy. In particular, this chapter will focus on the debate on recognition and redistribution between Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth. Though privileged in certain ways, this chapter argues that the American rural white working class is a historically misrecognized group in the United States, rather than a group who suffers merely from maldistribution as Fraser would suggest. Using this debate around redistribution or recognition put forth by Fraser and Honneth, I suggest that Honneth’s understanding of the interconnectedness of recognition and redistribution more accurately describes the situation of the rural white working class. If one wishes to better understand the plight of the rural white working class, one must understand it as a matter of misrecognition, not one of mere maldistribution.