The Politics of Recognition and Social Justice : Transforming Subjectivities and New Forms of Resistance

Through a series of case studies of groups challenging social inequalities - based in class, race, culture, nationality, sexuality, religion, age, and disability - this book develops a critical-theoretical account of forms of resistance. It explores how people make sense of their subjectivity as they are constructed and reconstructed within relations of power, and what kinds of subjectivities are needed to struggle against forms of dominance. While each contribution to the volume foregrounds particular subjectivities, they apply an intersectional analysis to the particular sites of the struggle they are addressing.

Via a wide range of case studies, this book examines new forms of resistance to social injustices in contemporary Western societies. Resistance requires agency, and agency is grounded in notions of the subject and subjectivity. How do people make sense of their subjectivity as they are constructed and reconstructed within relations of power? What kinds of subjectivities are needed to struggle against forms of dominance and claim recognition? The participants in the case studies are challenging forms of dominance and subordination grounded in class, race, culture, nationality, sexuality, religion, age, disability and other forms of social division. It is a premise of this book that new and/or reconstructed forms of subjectivity are required to challenge social relations of subordination and domination. Thus, the transformation of subjectivity as well as the restructuring of oppressive power relations is necessary to achieve social justice. By examining the construction of subjectivity of particular groups through an intersectional lens, the book aims to contribute to theoretical accounts of how subjects are constituted and how they can develop a critical distance from their positioning.