Metaphors and hermeneutical resistance

Abstract

In this paper, I explore ways in which metaphors contribute to hermeneutical resistance, that is, to practices that overcome and/or ameliorate hermeneutical injustice. I distinguish two aspects of hermeneutical injustice and two corresponding kinds of resistance: exoteric and esoteric hermeneutical injustice/resistance. The former injustice consists in unjust harm due to an inability to make one's experience understood to others. The latter consists in such a harm due to an inability to fully understand one's own experiences. In exoteric hermeneutical resistance, metaphors can overcome resistances in others to understand oppressed agents' contributions because of its automatic processing and anti‐deniability. In esoteric hermeneutical resistance, metaphors may highlight common structures in various aspects of marginalised agent's experiences, they can provide means of denoting social properties obscured by hermeneutical injustice and they can exhibit hermeneutical injustice by resisting interpretation. I illustrate these practices through works by Emily Dickinson, Ralph Ellison, Frantz Fanon, Paul Celan and Nelly Sachs. Those examples show the power of metaphors in hermeneutical resistance.