The politics of (mis)recognition Week 3 2013-2014 2010-11

1. Money, Sex and Power The politics of (mis)recognitionWeek 32013-20142010-11

2. Lecture outline • The distinction between a politics of distribution and a politics of recognition • The emergence of a politics of recognition within feminism • The theories of Pierre Bourdieu and how he understands recognition

3. Fading out of demands for redistributive justice 1 Demands for redistributive social justice or the redistribution of material resources have been losing ground. Why? One Practical reason: • Attempt to measure economic inequality between the sexes, in order to redistribute income and material wealth has proved difficult; But two other important factors also …

4. Fading out of demands for redistributive justice 2 Two other factors: • Discreditation of workers’ organisations, workers’ rights/power, socialism following the collapse of East and Central European socialist regimes; and • Progressive weakening of labour movements in countries with capitalist economies since the 1980s and acceptance by their political representatives of neo-liberal thinking.

5. Demands of Legal/Cultural Recognition and Respect • Demands for social justice, based on legal or cultural recognition have replaced demands for social justice based on redistribution of material resources. • Demands for legal or cultural recognition made by groups in Britain, Europe, elsewhere based on differences in: • nationality • ‘race’/ethnicity • gender • sexuality • faith

6. Nancy Fraser • Claims for redistributive justice relate to structural inequalities within society • Claims for recognition relate to cultural practices of misrecognition, domination, disrespect • Redistributive justice relates to classes or class-like collectivities • Recognition relates to Weberian status groups who are defined by ‘the relations of recognition’ and ‘distinguished by the lesser respect, esteem, and prestige they enjoy relative to other groups in society’ (Fraser, 2003:14)

7. Nancy Fraser Should we ditch the politics of redistribution in favour of the politics of recognition, even though massive inequalities continue to exist? No! “I assume that justice today requires both redistribution and recognition. … My larger aim is to connect two political problematics that are currently dissociated from each other, for only by integrating recognition and redistribution can we arrive at a framework that is adequate to the demands of our age (Fraser, Justice Interruptus, 1997).

8. Equality and difference: equal rights feminism Equal rights feminists state: • there are no significant differences between men and women; • whatever perceived differences there are between the sexes, are socially constructed, not biological; • therefore men and women should be treated equally. Hence, sine 19th century, equal rights feminist have called for the universal equal rights that all men enjoy to be applied to all women as well.

9. Equality and difference: difference feminism For difference feminists: • men and women are different in nature but this difference should not form the basis of a hierarchy; • accept the fact of a feminine or female nature but resist definitions imposed upon women by the patriarchy. So, TorilMoi (1999) argues from the position of difference feminism that: “nothing follows of necessity from this [i.e. feminine nature] in terms of forms of social organisation, … to justify placing restrictions on what women may do with their lives”.

10. Equality shouldn’t mean denial of difference Differences can be made to be significant, e.g. in the way technology is designed with ‘normal’ (male) worker in mind. Need to recognise difference to achieve equal access to jobs. In Brothers: Male Dominance and Technological Change (1991), Cynthia Cockburn charts print industry battle of the 1980s, between workers and employers such as Rupert Murdoch who wanted to use new technologies at The Sun and The Times printing plants to substitute cheap, non-unionised female labour for more expensive, unionised male labour.

11. Difference within the category “women” 1980s - politics of difference took a further turn in the British and American women’s movements because of critiques made by women who felt excluded from these movements; e.g.: black and lesbian women; women from developing countries. Their critique? That the category “women” had been constructed by white, western, middle class, heterosexual women. Terms of the debate changed from explaining not just differences between men and women also exploring differences within the category “women”.

12. Race and difference • Shift away from difference being defined biologically • Cultural difference valued • Campaigns for equality criticised because equality implied becoming the same as ‘whites’, and white men at that.

13. Bourdieu and recognition • Bourdieu drew from Frantz Fanon’s work on imperialism, ‘race’ and racism Black Skin, White Masks (1967) • For Fanon and Bourdieu the development of a sense of self is fully social • We develop our sense of self-respect through others recognising and respecting us,especially important figures in our lives • But Fanon and Bourdieu concerned with whole categories of people who are systematically denied respect and recognition.

14. Misrecognition and symbolic violence • Denial of recognition (misrecognition) happens systematically • The dominant – i.e. men, white people, the bourgeoisie have a stake in maintaining misrecognition to protect their own status in society • But the dominated are complicit in their misrecognition by the dominant group; they accept it as the normal social order • Bourdieu refers to the denial of recognition or misrecognition as symbolic violence

15. Who dominates? Who is dominated • So who dominates (or claims distinction as he calls it) and who is dominated? • Relations between those who dominate and those dominated or subjugated represented in a complex map - the “social field” (Distinction, 1984). This field is mapped in terms of people’s status based on their possession of 4 types of capital: • economic capital; • cultural capital; • social capital; • symbolic capital.

17. Habitus • Embodied • Experienced as individual, personal • Acquired through practice • Primary foundation for taste

18. Summary of Bourdieu’s schema • Different types of capital + habitus determines social status and allows you to claim distinction and hence dominate OR means that you are misrecognised and are among the dominated • But economic capital doesn’t necessarily give you access to cultural capital and social recognition, nor does it necessarily give access to power. A minimum of cultural capital may be required also. • High levels of economic capital don’t necessarily command recognition and respect. On the other hand, cultural capital doesn’t, on its own, transfer into economic capital.