Subjectivity, Gender and the Struggle for Recognition

P. McQueen

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781137425980
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137425997
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy
• Index: Social Sciences

In this book Paddy McQueen examines the role that 'recognition' plays in our struggles to construct an identity and to make sense of ourselves as gendered beings. It analyses how such struggles for gender recognition are shaped by social discourses and power relations, and considers how feminism can best respond to these issues.

1

The Politics of Recognition

Introduction

In recent decades, struggles for recognition have increasingly dominated the political landscape.¹ Recognition theorists such as Charles Taylor (1994) and Axel Honneth (1995) seek to interpret and justify these struggles through the idea that our identity is shaped, at least partly, by our relations with other people. Because our identity is shaped in this way, it is alleged that feelings of self-worth, self-respect and self-esteem are possible only if we are positively recognised for who we are. Consequently, for many political theorists, recognition is an integral component of a satisfactory modern theory of justice, as well as the means by which both historical and contemporary political struggles can be understood and justified.

In this opening chapter I examine the central ideas and debates within contemporary theories of recognition. In Section (I) I clarify the philosophical and political meanings of recognition. I then proceed to analyse the works of two major recognition theorists: Charles Taylor (Section II) and Axel Honneth (Section III). In Section (IV) I turn to the debate between Honneth and Nancy Fraser over how best to understand the concept of recognition within critical theory. I argue that Fraser’s criticisms of Honneth are unsuccessful because of her problematic characterisation of recognition, which she equates purely with a politics of difference. This mischaracterisation also undermines her own theory, as she relies upon an untenable division between recognition and redistribution. I conclude with Section (V), wherein I argue that Taylor, Honneth and Fraser can all be understood as advocating a ‘deficit model’ of recognition (McBride, 2013). This model treats the solution to social injustices as requiring the expansion and/or alteration of recognition relations. Furthermore, they all take problems of power or exclusion to be extrinsic to the mechanics of recognition, and hence solvable through recognition itself. I argue that this model of recognition is problematic as it ignores the ambivalence of recognition – that is, its simultaneously empowering and normalising / exclusionary effects. This is linked to my second complaint against the deficit model, namely that it treats power as extrinsic to subject formation.

I Defining ‘recognition’

To begin, it is necessary to establish more clearly what is meant by the term ‘recognition’. It has several distinct meanings: (1) an act of intellectual apprehension, such as when we recognise that we have made a mistake or we recognise the influence of religion on American politics; (2) a form of identification, such as when we recognise a friend in the street; and (3) the act of acknowledging or respecting another being, such as when we recognise someone’s status, achievements or rights.² The philosophical and political notion of recognition predominantly refers to (3), and is often taken to mean that not only is recognition an important means of valuing or respecting another person, but it is also fundamental to understanding ourselves and forming our identities.

Various attempts have been made to clarify precisely what does and does not count as an act of recognition (e.g. Ikäheimo, 2002; Ikäheimo and Laitinen, 2007; Laitinen, 2002, 2006). Ikäheimo defines recognition as ‘always a case of A taking B as C in the dimension of D, and B taking A as a relevant judge’ (Ikäheimo, 2002: 450). Here A and B indicate two persons, where A is the recogniser and B the recognisee. C designates the attribute recognised in A, and D is the dimension of B’s personhood at stake. For example, I may recognise you as a person possessing certain rights and responsibilities in light of your being an autonomous, rational human being. A key feature of Ikäheimo’s definition is that it requires not only that someone be recognised by another, but that the person being recognised judges that the recogniser is capable of offering recognition. This means that we must place sufficient value in the recogniser in order for their attitude towards us to count as recognitive. Brandom (2009) approaches this idea through the idea of authority, arguing that a genuine instance of recognition requires that we authorise someone to confer recognition. Consequently, one has authority to offer recognition only insofar as one is recognised as authoritative.³

To grasp this more clearly, let us consider the opposite situation. We may not consider being valued by a wilful criminal as any sort of recognition in the sense being defined here. We do not judge them capable of recognising us in an appropriate way, as we do not accord any value or respect to them as recognisers. Similarly, someone who is coerced into recognising us may also fail to count as a relevant judge. A king who demands recognition of his superiority from all his subjects simply by virtue of his being king, and threatens to punish them if they disobey, does not receive any meaningful kind of recognition from these subjects as they do not freely choose to recognise his value. For the king to receive the appropriate sort of recognition, it seems necessary for two conditions to be met: (i) the king who is receiving the recognition must consider his subjects to be competent judges, for otherwise he will not consider their recognition of any value; and (ii) the subjects must consider the king as genuinely deserving of recognition in some way in order to make him an appropriate object of recognition (this could be because of the king’s virtues, or perhaps because he is an office-holder and therefore deserves respect). These conditions demonstrate that reciprocity or mutuality is likely to be a necessary condition of appropriate recognition.

Attempts have been made to distinguish between generative and responsive models of recognition (Laitinen, 2002; 2007; Markell, 2000). A generative-model of recognition focuses on the ways in which recognition confers a status onto an individual, thus generating reasons for actions or self-understandings. This is to say that someone ought to act in a certain way by virtue of being recognised; for example, recognising someone as a rational being will generate certain duties and responsibilities for both the person being recognised and those who interact with them. Thus, the generative model interprets the act of recognition as entailing certain actions and/or beliefs, such that persons A and B ought to do actions X and Y respectively in light of the act of recognition R. A response-model of recognition focuses on the ways in which recognition acknowledges pre-existing features of a person. On this account, to recognise someone is to acknowledge them as they already really are. This means that there are reasons why one ought to give recognition to someone prior to the act of recognition itself. Thus, for example, one ought to recognise someone’s ability for self-determination because they possess certain features, such as rational autonomy. The demand for recognition in a response-model is produced and justified through pre-existing characteristics of a person, whilst in the generative-model it is the act of recognition itself that confers those characteristics onto a person through their being recognised. The former is a case of person ‘knowing’ whilst the latter is a case of person ‘making’ (Markell, 2000).

These two models should not necessarily be seen as incompatible. For example, one can confer a status on someone or something through recognising them or it as X (generative recognition), and because the person now counts as X they can make claims for further recognition (responsive recognition). An example of this would be recognising a child as an adult (thus conferring a status that they did not previously have), who can then make a demand for their vote to be recognised (a claim which is justified because of their status as an adult). However, the generative model seems problematic in so far as an act of recognition that generates or confers something (e.g. a status, identity, characteristic, etc.) will only work to the extent that it successfully maps onto the relevant features of the person in question. For example, recognising a child as an adult will only successfully ‘confer’ that status and identity if the child really is an adult. If the child does not have the requisite properties attached to adulthood, then the conferring of that status will fail. Thus, the distinction between a generative and responsive model appears to be untenable as the former model collapses into the latter. All acts of recognition need, in some sense, to be responsive for the recognition to ‘stick’. It would be better to replace these two models with a transformative model, wherein person A recognises person B in light of certain features possessed by B, and in so doing new claims can be made of or by B. Thus B is transformed through being recognised, but that recognition is a response to pre-existing facts about B. This avoids the problem implied by the generation-model, namely that recognition conjures features about people ex nihilo.⁴

A third issue is whether recognition only pertains between individual persons (i.e. is interpersonal) or can also pertain between groups or collectives. For example, when speaking of recognising a particular cultural group, do we mean we recognise that group qua a group, or as a collection of individuals? Similarly, does the granting of certain rights or respect apply to the group itself or the individual members belonging to that group?⁵ These questions revolve, at least in part, around the ontological status afforded to groups or collectives (Tuomela, 2007; Jones, 2009; List and Pettit, 2011). For example, debates over the legitimacy or sovereignty of a state may depend upon the extent to which we recognise it as legitimate or sovereign, which requires recognising the state as a group agent composed of, but not reducible to, the individuals within it. As will be seen, Honneth’s model of recognition focuses on the psychological experiences of recognition and thus he gives little thought to the idea of recognising groups.⁶ Whilst he is certainly concerned with understanding and justifying collective social struggles, it is because of the effects that such struggles have on the individuals which comprise the group. Thus, the idea that we can recognise a group as a collective agent is absent from Honneth’s account. In contrast, Charles Taylor (1994) is more attuned to the idea of recognising collectives given that his account of recognition focuses on securing the value of cultural identities.

Finally, one needs to distinguish between misrecognition and non-recognition. Misrecognition implies that one has not been recognised in the way that one takes oneself to be. How one takes oneself to be will depend, to some degree at least, on how one has previously been recognised (given the intersubjective dimension to identity formation). Accordingly, prior to being misrecognised, the individual must have been recognised in a way that they accepted or, at least, did not challenge.⁷ As Chapter 4 will demonstrate, feminists have often claimed that they have been consistently misrecognised – for example, by being deemed weak, irrational, overly-emotional, and / or inferior to men. By claiming that the way they have been recognised is inaccurate, an alternative identity or description is offered, on the basis of which demands for recognition are made. Non-recognition, as the term implies, occurs where no identity, right(s) and / or values are assigned to an individual or group. Examples of this include the refusal to recognise a state and the refusal to recognise individuals as intersexed (given the insistence that one must be recognised as either male or female). In an instance of non-recognition, it is not the case that one is recognised in ways that counter how one takes oneself to be, but rather that one is not recognised at all.⁸

II Charles Taylor and the politics of multiculturalism

Having clarified the meaning of recognition, I turn now to the ways in which specific theorists have constructed a politics of recognition. Much contemporary interest in the idea of recognition was fuelled by Charles Taylor’s essay ‘Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition’ (Taylor, 1994). Taylor’s lucid and concise article is often treated as the classic expression of a political theory of recognition. However, it would be more accurate to say that Taylor awoke a general interest in the idea of political recognition. His short essay provides a series of reflections and conjectures which, whilst insightful, do not constitute a full-blown theory. Nevertheless, its exploratory nature and non-technical language has helped establish it as the common reference point for discussions of recognition. Indeed, it seems fair to describe it as the canonical expression of the politics of recognition, both for proponents and critics of recognition alike.

Taylor (1994: 25) begins his account with the assertion that ‘a number of strands in contemporary politics turn on the need, sometimes the demand, for recognition’. He identifies such a demand as being present in the political activities of feminism, race movements and multiculturalists. The specific importance of recognition lies in its relationship to identity, which Taylor (ibid.) defines as ‘a person’s understanding of who they are, of their fundamental characteristics as a human being’ (cf. Taylor, 1989). Because identity is ‘partly shaped by recognition or its absence ... [n]onrecognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being’ (Taylor, 1994: 25). Underlying Taylor’s model is Hegel’s observation that individuals are formed intersubjectively. One’s individual identity is neither something ready-formed at birth, nor something chosen by oneself over the course of one’s life. Rather, it is through dialogue with others – specifically, certain ‘significant others’ (those people that have an important role in our lives, such as family, friends, teachers, colleagues, etc.) – that one negotiates the formation of one’s identity. The idea that our sense of who we are is determined through our interactions with others initiates a shift from a monologic to a dialogic model of the self.

Taylor is keen to stress how important recognition is. He refers to it as ‘a vital human need’ and states that misrecognition ‘can inflict a grievous wound, saddling its victims with a crippling self-hatred’ (ibid.: 26). Deploying a brief historical narrative, Taylor argues that the collapse of social hierarchies that had provided the basis for bestowing honour on certain individuals (i.e. those high up on the social ladder) has led to the modern day notion of dignity, which rests upon universalist and egalitarian principles regarding the equal worth of all human beings. This notion of dignity lies at the core of contemporary democratic ideals, unlike the notion of honour which, he claims, is incompatible with democratic culture. This picture is complicated by the fact that alongside this development of dignity there also emerged a new understanding of ‘individualised identity’, which placed emphasis on each person’s uniqueness. Taylor defines the notion of uniqueness as ‘being true to myself and my own particular way of being’ (ibid.: 28) and connects it to the ideal of authenticity. He states, ‘Being true to myself means being true to my own originality, which is something only I can articulate and discover. In articulating it, I am also defining myself’ (ibid.: 31).⁹

Taylor has been accused of adopting an essentialist view of the self, on the basis that he suggests there is some inner ‘me’, some kernel of selfhood, lying dormant, waiting to be uncovered and displayed to (and recognised by) the world (cf. McNay, 2008). The struggle for recognition thus becomes a struggle to be recognised as what one truly is. However, Taylor is keen to stress that the discovery of our authenticity is not simply a matter of introspection. Rather, it is through our interactions with others that we define who we are. Furthermore, there is no end point to this dialogue: it continues throughout our lives and does not even depend upon the physical presence of a specific other for that person to influence us. Consider, for example, the way an imaginary conversation with a deceased partner might influence how we act or view ourselves. The importance of recognition lies precisely in the fact that how others (might) see us is a necessary condition in forming an understanding of who we are. I cannot speak of determining what I am without reference to the ways in which others recognise me. Furthermore, there will be times when others are better placed to make sense of me, and hence their recognition of who I am comes as a revelation. Consequently, we cannot speak of fully knowing one’s self prior to recognition, for it is through recognition that we come to understand and value who we are.

Nevertheless, the concept of authenticity remains central to Taylor’s account. To be recognised negatively, or misrecognised, is to be thwarted in our desire for authenticity and self-esteem. For all Taylor’s rejection of any essential or static self, he couches the struggle for recognition in terms that veer close to depicting the sort of subjectivism and essentialism that he seeks to move away from. For example, in describing the modern view of how we create a sense of ‘full being’, he notes that, rather than connecting with some source outside of ourselves (such as God or the Platonic Good), ‘the source we have to connect with is deep within us. This fact is part of the massive subjective turn of modern culture, a new form of inwardness, in which we come to think of ourselves as beings with hidden depths’ (Taylor, 1994: 29). Taylor proceeds to note that authenticity ‘calls on me to discover my own original way of being. By definition, this way of being cannot be socially derived, but must be inwardly generated’ (ibid.: 32). However, rather than recommending this picture, Taylor is offering a diagnosis of how this situation has arisen. Indeed, he is heavily critical of subjectivist accounts of identity formation in which one supposedly determines oneself independently of one’s social relations (ibid.).¹⁰ His model of recognition seeks to imbue the idea of authenticity with an intersubjective theory of identity formation, wherein one’s identity provides the conceptual horizon through which we approach and understand the world, and one’s understanding of one’s self is formed dialogically (cf. Gadamer, 1989).

Taylor uses these reflections on identity and our relations to others to analyse the politics of equal recognition. He identifies two different ways in which the idea of equal recognition has been understood. The first is a politics of equal dignity, or a politics of universalism, which has the aim of the equalisation of all rights and entitlements. In this instance, all individuals are to be treated as universally the same through recognition of their common citizenship or humanity. The second formulation is the politics of difference, in which the uniqueness of each individual or group is recognised. Taylor notes that there is also a universal basis to this second political model in so far as all people are entitled to have their identity recognised: ‘we give due acknowledgement only to what is universally present – everyone has an identity – through recognizing what is peculiar to each. The universal demand powers an acknow...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  The Politics of Recognition
• 2  The Importance of Hegelian Recognition
• 3  Situating the Subject: Identity, Power and Recognition
• 4  Aint I a Woman? Feminist Theory and the Politics of Recognition
• 5  Recognising Transgender Identities: Narratives and Politics of the Gendered Self
• 6  Recognition, Queer Politics and a Liveable Life
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index