Judith Butler’s ‘not particularly postmodern insight’ of recognition

Ferrarese, Estelle

doi:10.1177/0191453711410029

Cited by 24 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(3 reference statements)

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“…Butler's use of the notion of subjection, on the other hand, has frequently been interpreted in line with the misleading claim that recognition imposes identities on individuals and is therefore experienced as constraining or oppressive by those who are recognized. Subjection, on such an interpretation, simply becomes another term for expressing why recognition is experienced as constraining or oppressive: insofar as recognition is supposed to impose an identity on us, it subjects us and is therefore experienced as negative (Bertram & Celikates, , p. 843; Ferrarese, , pp. 764, 765; Jaeggi, , pp.…”

Section: An Ideology Critique Of Recognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An ideology critique of recognition: Judith Butler in the context of the contemporary debate on recognition

Lepold

2018

Constellations

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Recognition is a key concept in contemporary social and political thought. The fundamental insight associated with this concept is that we cannot really be who we are or who we want to be if others do not treat us in certain ways. We depend on others or, more specifically, on recognition by others, in order to be able to actualize our identities. If we do not find recognition or an appropriate form of recognition in our personal interactions or in the wider society, we are peculiarly constrained in our being. As Charles Taylor observes in his famous 1992 essay, "The Politics of Recognition," with regard to this dependence on the recognition by others: "Nonrecognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being" (Taylor, 1994, p. 25).In a similar vein, Axel Honneth describes cases of withheld recognition or misrecognition as instances of oppression as the individual concerned is rendered unable "to count as the person which he desired to be in terms of his Ego ideals" (Honneth, 1992, p. 199). As these brief remarks make clear, recognition is generally viewed as something positive. It is good for individuals to be recognized by others and not to be recognized, or not to be recognized in an appropriate way, has serious consequences. In the light of this, it appears self-evident that society should be criticized as to to whether it provides individuals with appropriate relations of recognition.Judith Butler is often referred to as a thinker who disputes the positive view of recognition prevalent today. The general opinion is that Butler advocates a view of recognition according to which recognition is not, or rather not only, enabling-as authors like Taylor or Honneth would have it-but also constraining and oppressive. The standard way of summarizing Butler's view is to say that for her recognition is somehow connected to or intertwined with power.In the eyes of some commentators, this makes Butler a proponent of a "negative theory of recognition," or at least of an "ambivalent account of recognition" (e.g.,

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Section: An Ideology Critique Of Recognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…48, 53, 56). This equation can be found in many places and is virtually never questioned; see, among others, Deines (, p. 282); Ferrarese (, p. 764) and Petherbridge (, p. 593).…”

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An ideology critique of recognition: Judith Butler in the context of the contemporary debate on recognition

Lepold

2018

Constellations

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“…In Honneth's view there is a taken‐for‐granted assumption at the level of everyday life “that we implicitly owe our integrity to the receipt of approval or recognition from other persons” (Honneth , 248; ). Underlying Honneth's work is what might be termed an “anthropology of vulnerability” based on a theory of mutual recognition (see also Ferrarese ). According to this account, “the integrity of human subjects, vulnerable as they are to injury through insult and disrespect, depends on their receiving approval and respect from others” (Honneth , 248).…”

Section: Axel Honneth's Anthropological Conception Of Vulnerability Amentioning

confidence: 99%

What's Critical about Vulnerability? Rethinking Interdependence, Recognition, and Power

Petherbridge¹

2016

Hypatia

256

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Images of vulnerability have populated the philosophical landscape from Hobbes to Hegel, Levinas to Foucault, often designating a sense of corporeal susceptibility to injury, or of being threatened or wounded and therefore have been predominantly associated with violence, finitude, or mortality. More recently, feminist theorists such as Judith Butler and Adriana Cavarero have begun to rethink corporeal vulnerability as a critical or ethical category, one based on our primary interdependence and intercorporeality. However, many contemporary theorists continue to associate vulnerability with violence and finitude rather than providing an account of the normative theory that might underpin vulnerability as a critical category. In this article, I explore an alternative notion of vulnerability in relation to both a theory of power and a normative account that draws on recognition theory. My aim in this article is twofold: first, to examine the complexity of vulnerability and how it relates to forms of recognition; second, to outline how the notion of vulnerability can operate as the basis for critiquing objectionable forms of vulnerability. This is to consider vulnerability not only as an ethical or ontological question but as a political one, and shifts arguments about its abuse and entanglement with power and violence to the public political sphere.

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“…How might reality be remade? ' (2004, 33), thereby indicating the ways in which such a recognition operates across the three levels of inauguration, tool and outcome (Ferrarese 2011). Such a discourse of intervention comes to the aid of the political (McRobbie 2004, 505 -506) through a concentration on the scene of the encounter between selfhood and other.…”

Section: Responsibility: Attitude and An Ethical Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

Undoing attitudes: subjectivity and ethical change in theGo Back to Where You Came Fromdocumentary

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2013

Continuum

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In the context of Australian debates about refugees and asylum seekers, this article examines the relationship between attitude, as a performative articulation of selfhood, and ethics of non-violence and welcome. Exploring how attitude change has been represented in the narrative of the Go Back To Where You Came From documentary, it is argued that attitude is a concept indelibly fixed within discourses of refugee arrivals in Australia and attitude change regularly posited as the process towards ethics. An example of attitude change in the documentary is discussed through Butler's ethics of non-violence and the ways in which recognition and the recognizability of the other operate to promote or stem an ethical responsiveness or welcome. This is followed by looking at how the Butler's account of frames as the social and political mechanisms that can prevent the recognition of the other as human or worthy of hospitality can be expanded to show how the production of an ethical relationship is aided by a disturbance in selfhood such that a subject can recognize his or her own vulnerability and hence the vulnerability of the other. How an expanded theory of ethics and hospitality plays out through attitude change is highlighted.Australian government policies on population, immigration and responses towards a relatively minor rate of boat arrivals of refugees and asylum seekers, and methods of assessment of individual refugees, are not today driven by questions of justice, nor by precedent, international conventions or agreements. Rather, as has increasingly been argued (Aly 2010), government border protection and immigration policies are guided by polling on public attitudes towards a 'refugee problem', which relate more to planning for the future electoral successes of the incumbent government than to impartial policies or continuity of administration. This is what commentator Ross Gittins (2011) refers to as leaders 'pandering to our dark side -our fears, our weaknesses, our selfishness'. That fact leads to important questions as to the role of attitude in contemporary culture, how and why particular attitudes towards refugees are constituted and how attitudes towards refugees can change.Attitude, as a habitual mode of regard towards an object of thought, is a complex term typically discussed within the field of psychology. While the idea of attitude itself is both problematic and under-theorized from a cultural perspective, it is a term that is frequently and specifically invoked in discussions around the perception of refugees, the notion of a refugee problem and public understanding of government policy and international conventions. Its relative absence from cultural theory thus becomes notable when critically engaging with popular perspectives on refugees in the Australian context, and its q 2013 Taylor & Francis *

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Judith Butler’s ‘not particularly postmodern insight’ of recognition

Cited by 24 publications

References 16 publications

An ideology critique of recognition: Judith Butler in the context of the contemporary debate on recognition

An ideology critique of recognition: Judith Butler in the context of the contemporary debate on recognition

What's Critical about Vulnerability? Rethinking Interdependence, Recognition, and Power

Undoing attitudes: subjectivity and ethical change in theGo Back to Where You Came Fromdocumentary

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