The recognizing body: physiological dimensions of a democratic norm

Abstract

ABSTRACT However complex and challenging it is understood to be, recognition is still largely examined to date as a disembodied cognitive process. Yet the affective dimensions of recognition cannot be taken for granted, particularly when it is required in contexts of deep diversity and inequality. An examination of the embodied dimensions of recognition sheds light on why, as some recognition scholars observe, recognition is so difficult to achieve. It also reveals practical directions for addressing these very challenges. This article offers an account of recognition as physiological process. Bringing recent psychological and neuroscience research into dialogue for the first time with recognition theory, it outlines three aspects of our physiological responses to difference that make a politics of recognition difficult, identifies how these physiological processes are further shaped by inhabiting positions of relative advantage, and begins to explore what this might mean for democratic life.