Recognizing the Limitations of the Political Theory of Recognition: Axel Honneth, Nancy Fraser and Social Work

Exploring the Concepts of Recognition and Shame for Social Work

“…inequality and exclusion can be analyzed. Social work theorists such as Garrett (2010) and Houston (2010; have also explored its potential for understanding structural and inter-relational issues.…”

Recognition, Politics of: Perspectives from Social Work and Sociology

“…For Garrett (2009), the formality of the model of ethical life espoused by both Honneth and Houston is synonymous with a kind of political agnosticism. In Honneth's case, the failure in his conception of subjectivity is problematic, marked as it is by an unbridgeable gulf between an individual subject conceived in psychological terms, and social action conceived in abstract, general terms.…”

“…Garrett puts this down to perverse blind spot in cultural recognition politics on the hegemonic position of the modern State and the role it plays in reproducing inequalities of recognition. There are two significant contributions the State performs in structuring difference: firstly "it is responsible for the discursive promulgation of categories and labels attached to particular groups" (Garrett, 2009); secondly, across its territorial jurisdictions, it "can be regarded as a literal builder and consolidator of 'difference' which is achieved via spatial and territorial separating practices (under the guise of 'peace' walls or, more routinely, of course, in terms of the control of 'borders'" (p. 14). In part, as a vehicle of the apparatus of the State it would be important to reflect on the way that social work maintains or constructs these inequalities of recognition.…”

Recognising Social Work: The Influence of the Politics of Recognition on Social Work

“…It can inflict a grievous wound, saddling its victims with a crippling self-hatred' (26). Whilst Garrett (2010) is correct to identify the 1990s as the period in which academics re-engaged with theories of recognition, in reality such presuppositions had been the concern of both sides of the left/right political divide in the 1980s. The rise of multiculturalism and identity politics in this 300 MCLAUGHLIN period indicates that in this respect, the academy was analysing contemporary developments by use of theoretical concepts that were already in political usage, albeit articulated in non-academic terminology.…”

“…I have done this elsewhere (McLaughlin 2012) and would also refer any reader wishing an in-depth discussion of the theoretical complexities of the recognition debate to the work of Lois McNay (2008), and the debates between Nancy Fraser and a variety of her critics, including Axel Honneth, Judith Butler and Richard Rorty (Fraser 2008). For discussions of these ideas in relation to social welfare, see Martin (2001) and Dahl (2009), and in relation to social work, see Garrett (2010), Houston (2008) and Webb (2010).…”