Abstract
This paper follows a seminar discussion held 18th May 2014 on the topic: Recognition and Justice. The seminar, with reference to contemporary advocates of recognition and justice (Charles Taylor 1994, Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth 2003), focused on the struggles for recognition: what it means to recognise and be recognised and the limited theoretical approaches to understanding recognition and justice. This latter point is the focus of this post-seminar paper. With specific reference to the contested meaning of ‘Welcome to Country’ (herein WTC) rituals I explore here the ideas of recognition and justice with respect to the experiences of Aboriginal people in Australia.
Highlights
Recognition and justice are incoherent, weighty concepts inextricably linked to one another in multifaceted and intricate ways
Today we begin with one small step, to set right the wrongs of the past. In this ceremonial way... let this become a permanent part of our ceremonial celebration of the Australian democracy” (Everett 2009, p.55)
‘Acknowledging’ Country prior to public events has become commonplace in Australia
Summary
Recognition and justice are incoherent, weighty concepts inextricably linked to one another in multifaceted and intricate ways. This paper experiments with applying Hegelian philosophical accounts of the master / slave paradigm and acts of recognition in relation to the rituals of recognition in the context of the colonised / coloniser. The argument presented in this paper will mirror that in Glen Coulthard’s text, Subjects of Empire: Indigenous Peoples and the Politics of Recognition in Colonial Contexts (2006) and take shape in suggesting that despite the Hegelian ideal of reciprocity, the politics of recognition in contemporary Australia seemingly replicates the very formation of colonial power that Aboriginal people’s demand for recognition have both historically and politically aspired to surpass. According to Coulthard (2006) Hegel’s master / slave paradigm goes beyond providing an ‘ontological’ model on the interpersonal nature of human subjectivity Instead, this model summarises what Hegel deems as the ‘intersubjective conditions’ needed for the human beings to see (or rather realise) themselves as free beings (Coulthard 2006, Taylor 1994)
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