Politics Of Acknowledgment Research Articles

Glissant and the Politics of Coordination

This is an ironic moment for Edouard Glissant’s growing community of readers. So many are discovering Glissant’s work for the first time, myself included, in part because a fervent commitment to a politics of recognition now dominates in many corners of the humanities. This is ironic largely because while the choice to engage with Glissant might be motivated by an all too generalized logic of recognition, to read Glissant is to learn about how the basic premises underpinning this logic are deeply misguided. The politics of recognition, as a term of art, after all, is built on the conceptual planks made available by the standardizing impulses of the nation-state form and capitalism combined. Glissant, on the other hand, is nothing if not a theorist calling fervently for a path forward that does not depend on the complicities found in the conceptual imperialism inherent to the bureaucratic standardizing practices that bolster both the nation-state and contemporary capitalism. Glissant calls instead for an approach that offers the philosophical building blocks for a politics of coordination, which is described in Patchell Markell’s book, Bound by Recognition (2003) as a politics of acknowledgement. This politics entails forgingan alternative approach to the self and other, to identity and place, and to social orders in general than what the politics of recognition espouses.

Vulnerable recognition: recovering Hegelian agonism

ABSTRACT In this paper, I argue that a conception of vulnerable recognition addresses both the shortcomings of conventional understandings of recognition and Patchen Markell’s provocative critique (and abandonment) of recognition theory in Bound by Recognition. First, I outline Markell’s critique of conventional recognition theory and his call for the politics of recognition to be replaced by a politics of acknowledgement that turns toward the self and welcomes contingency. Second, I propose a reframing of recognition as vulnerable in response to conventional recognition theory’s limitations. This more agonistic conception of recognition recaptures the dynamism of Hegelian recognition that has been lost in recent decades. It draws attention to the desires, structures, and practices that underpin misrecognition and calls for an embrace of vulnerability, ambiguity, and political risk.

Changing Politics: Thoreau, Dewey and Cavell, and Democracy as a Way of Life

This paper reconsiders the meaning of political action by way of a dialogue between Dewey, Thoreau, and Cavell. These philosophers demonstrate possibilities of political engagement and participation. Especially in response to the psychological and emotional dimensions of political crisis today, I shall claim that American philosophy can demonstrate something beyond problem-solving as conventionally understood in politics and that it has the potential to re-place philosophy in such a manner that politics itself is changed. First, I shall draw a contrast between the ways of political action demonstrated respectively by Dewey and Thoreau. Some points of divergence are revealed within American philosophy. I shall then explore the partially different sense of political action implied by Cavell’s ordinary language philosophy, identifying this as the politics of acknowledgment. Finally, I shall propose the idea of challenging inclusion as an alternative political education for human transformation, taking this as a key to changing politics.

The politics of acknowledgement: truth commissions in Uganda and Haiti

1 Introduction Part 1: Theoretical Model 2 The Politics of Acknowledgement 3 Truth Commissions 4 The Truth Commissions of Uganda and Haiti Part 2: Analysis: Parallels between the Ugandan and Haitian Cases 5 Political Will 6 Institutional Constraints 7 Whither Acknowledgement? 8 Social Underpinnings 9 Acknowledgement: A New Lens for Evaluation Appendices Notes Bibliography Index

Reflecting on the Liberal Reflex: Rhetoric and the Politics of Acknowledgement in Basic Writing,

In the 1990s, leading rhetoric and composition scholars criticized basic writing programs for their “liberalism.” Basic writing had its defenders, however, and the ensuing debate exposed deep rifts in the field. This article argues that neither side in this formative debate nor the more recent alternative models of teaching basic writing manage to escape liberal hegemony. By combining political theory with rhetoric/composition scholarship, and relying on examples from recent changes to the basic writing program at Roosevelt University, I propose an approach to basic writing that combines rhetorical pedagogy with a new politics of acknowledgement in order to simultaneously concede and resist the university’s inevitable liberalism.

Book Notes: The Politics of Acknowledgement: Truth Commissions in Uganda and Haiti, by Joanna R. Quinn

Book Notes: The Politics of Acknowledgement: Truth Commissions in Uganda and Haiti, by Joanna R. Quinn

A Democratic Politics of Acknowledgement: Political Judgment, Imagination, and Exemplarity

A Democratic Politics of Acknowledgement: Political Judgment, Imagination, and Exemplarity