The Politics of ‘Misrecognition’: A Feminist Critique

Abstract

For the past decade and a half, social and political thinkers have appropriated the Hegelian trope of a struggle for recogni to generate theories that lead to a democratic of inclusion.1 different strands within the politics of recogni tion debate share the conviction that is a central human good and the precondition for justice in pluralist societ ies. However, the French psychoanalytic philosopher Jacques Lacan questions an ethics based on recognition. Lots of things have been to fit within the politi cal myth of the 'struggle for life,' he argues in Book /, If it was Darwin who wrought it, that was because he came of a nation of privateers, for whom racism was the basic industry.2 I share Lacan's suspicion of an ethics based on or its counterpart?misrecognition. Contem porary thinkers, who have wrought this trope for have continued to mythologize it, thereby not so much contributing to a of inclusion, but instead, perpetuating a of exclusions. What parades as a pluralist society where subjects supposedly equally recognize each other in their diver sity often ends up in the exclusion of different subjects, such as women, sexual and racial minorities, and the poor. Although the influence of the of is fading, perhaps because some thinkers have realized its inherent problems, it remains a dominant strand in contemporary political theorizing. Some thinkers, such as Patchen Markell, have pointed to the problematic aspects of a based on recognition. dominance of the politics of recognition in contemporary political theorizing, Markell argues, does not so much contribute to establish more just societies; instead, this strand of theorizing made it more difficult to comprehend and confront unjust social and political relations.3 Although there are some contemporary thinkers who question the validity of the of debate, a thorough critique on this strand of thinking remains to be written?its representatives remain perhaps too powerful figures in the field of political theory and philosophy to be challenged. This paper develops such a challenge further. Its aim is two fold: First, it explains why the language of delivers an inadequate foundation for a political theory that aims at a of inclusion. Second, it proposes an alternative political theory, a politics of a subject-in-owi/me, as a philosophical foundation for a of inclusion.4 It shows that a of functions on the level of the Lacanian ego, which excludes everyone who does not neatly fit into the ideal whole it defends. In contrast, a of a subject-in-outline emerges in the Lacanian real, the moment beyond recognition, which points at the gaps in the political community. It is through these gaps where those excluded can enter the political community and contest its boundaries. paper defends its argument in three sections. first section, The Ego in the Hegelian Mirror Encounter, explains why a of leads to injustice. It reads Lacan alongside Hegel, to show why Hegel himself, who is claimed by contemporary theorists (from Fukuyama to Honneth) as the central source for their vision of a just society based on mutual recognition, nf an pthirs V??i?pH nn rprnanitinn This