Abstract
Identity politics has become a prevailing, almost monopolising, approach in many contemporary movements for social justice. Such prevalence calls for an urgent critical analysis of its proposal and outcomes. This paper seeks to contribute to this study by exploring two assumptions that underlie identity politics as a political and conceptual approach: first, that forms of subjection are always or predominantly articulated around identities; second, that there is a “we” constituted around such identities, which is homogenous and almost a self-evident given. Through an analysis of two examples from contemporary mainstream feminism (affirmative action and punitivism), it assesses the defence of identity as a sufficient and/or necessary hermeneutical tool to understand oppression and resistance, as well as the actual reach of the identity-based “we” affirmed by feminism. It concludes that countering the monopoly of identity politics by rescaling identity as one factor among others, and identity-based tactics as some among many, is a better approach to struggles for social justice.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
In this line, Stuart Hall finds that social movements related to Black identity in Britain have adopted two forms: “Identity Politics One”, which takes an essentialist approach, and “Identity Politics Two”, in which Black identity can be claimed as a political stance while acknowledging its historicity, fluidity, and interactions and co-constitution with other identity markers such as gender or nationality. Although Hall argues in favour of the latter, he also acknowledges the historical importance of the first as a key stage in struggles against oppression (Hall 1997). Here I follow Eduardo Restrepo’s (2014) interpretation of Hall.
In a previous version of this paper, I referred to “strategies”, but Andrew Spiegel incited me to ask myself whether the cases under analysis (affirmative action and punitivism) should indeed be considered strategies or rather tactics, following De Certeau’s (2002) distinction. Upon examination of this point, I would suggest that although they are presented by feminism as “strategies”, that is, as radical interventions to transform an unjust social landscape, they might in fact be tactics, since they remain within the realm of the (limited) opportunities opened by the social order that is being confronted. However, assessing whether they are one or another requires evaluating in each case to what extent they are able or willing to exceed the terms imposed by patriarchal cultures and institutions. If they are indeed tactics as I suppose, it is worth noting that according to de Certeau, “What [a tactic] wins it cannot keep” (de Certeau 2002, 37).
This is part of a broader problem noted by Radi, regarding how trans people are often placed in the situation of having to choose between their right to gender identity and other rights, such as health or physical integrity. See for example Radi (2019).
Indeed, even issues that seem more evidently tied to female identity, such as femicide/feminicide, can be regarded more broadly as part of more complex power dynamics linked to gender at large (not just “women”), and to a devaluation of life in a capitalist, extractivist social order.
Although Halley refers to the US context, academic and political imperialism (the division of intellectual labour, global-north financing agencies, among others) make it so that these traits permeate feminist movements in many other geopolitical contexts as well. This results in grave hermeneutical injustices (i.e. the unjust lack of (accessible) interpretive tools to make sense of one’s experiences, primarily experiences of oppression; see Radi 2022; Bratu and Hänel 2021) when it comes to understanding experiences of gender related oppression in other contexts, which in turn leads to grave shortages in many interventions applied to diverse social and political landscapes.
References
Bernstein, Elizabeth. 2012. Carceral Politics as Gender Justice? The “Traffic in Women” and Neoliberal Circuits of Crime, Sex, and Rights. Theory and Society 41 (3): 233–259. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-012-9165-9.
Bratu, Christine, and Hilkje Hänel. 2021. Varieties of Hermeneutical Injustice: a Blueprint. Moral Philosophy and Politics 8 (2): 331–350. https://doi.org/10.1515/mopp-2020-0007.
Curiel, Ochy. 2009. Las paradojas de la política de la identidad y de la diferencia. In Derecho, interculturalidad y resistencia étnica, ed. Diana Carrillo González and Nelson Santiago Patarroyo Rengifo, 21–28. Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Das, Raju J. 2020. Identity Politics: a Marxist View. Class, Race, and Corporate Power 8 (1). https://doi.org/10.25148/CRCP.8.1.008921.
Das, Raju J. 2022. Why Is Identity Politics Not Conducive to Achieving Sustained Social Justice? Dialectical Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-022-09673-6.
de Certeau, Michel. 2002. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
Dupper, Ockert. 2014. Affirmative Action in Comparative Perspective. In Affirmative Action: a View from the Global South, ed. Ockert Dupper and Kamala Sankaran, 7–41. Stellenbosch: Sun Press.
Fukuyama, Francis. 2018. Against Identity Politics: the New Tribalism and the Crisis of Democracy. Foreign Affairs 97 (5): 90.
Goodin, Robert E. 1985. Vulnerabilities and Responsibilities: an Ethical Defense of the Welfare State. American Political Science Review 79 (3): 775–787.
Hall, Stuart. 1997. Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities. In Culture, Globalization and the World System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity, ed. Anthony D. King, vol. 3, 41–68. Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota Press.
Hall, Stuart. 2010. Subjects in History. Making Diasporic Identities. In The House That Race Built, ed. Wahneema Lubiano, 549–569. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Halley, Janet E. 2008. Split Decisions: How and Why to Take a Break from Feminism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hekman, Susan. 1999. Identity Crises: Identity, Identity Politics, and Beyond. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 2 (1): 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698239908403266.
Kurzwelly, Jonatan. 2022. Bones and Injustices: Provenance Research, Restitutions and Identity Politics. Dialectical Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-022-09670-9.
Lucía Núñez Rebolledo 2018. Identidad política, mujeres y derecho penal. Animal Político (blog). 2 March 2018. https://www.animalpolitico.com/diversidades-fluidas/identidad-politica-diversidades-mujeres-derecho-penal/.
Martins, Alexandre Nogueira. 2021. Cidadania Punitiva Desde Baixo: A Criminalização Da Lgbtfobia e a Democratização Neoliberal No Brasil. Cadernos Gestão Pública e Cidadania 26 (85). https://doi.org/10.12660/cgpc.v26n85.83205.
Pérez, Moira, and Blas Radi. 2020. Gender Punitivism: Queer Perspectives on Identity Politics in Criminal Justice. Criminology & Criminal Justice 20 (5): 523–536. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895820941561.
Radi, Blas. 2019. Injusticia reproductiva: entre el derecho a la identidad de género y los derechos sexuales y (no) reproductivos. In Salud feminista: soberanía de los cuerpos, poder y organización, ed. Fundación Soberanía Sanitaria, 125–146. Buenos Aires: Tinta Limón https://tintalimon.com.ar/libro/salud-feminista.
Radi, Blas. 2020. Notas (al pie) sobre cisnormatividad y feminismo. Ideas. Revista de filosofía moderna y contemporánea 11: 23–36.
Radi, Blas. 2022. Injusticia hermenéutica: un ejercicio de precisión conceptual. Estudios de Filosofía 66: 97–110. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ef.347837.
Restrepo, Eduardo. 2014. Sujeto e identidad. In Stuart Hall desde el sur: legados y apropiaciones, ed. Eduardo Restrepo, 97–118. Buenos Aires: CLACSO.
Táíwò, O.O. 2022. Elite Capture. How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else). London: Pluto Press.
Acknowledgements
I am thankful to Jonatan Kurzwelly and Andrew Spiegel, co-editors of this Forum, as well as to Blas Radi, for their attentive reading and comments on previous versions of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Perez, M. Contracting imaginations: on the political and hermeneutical monopoly of identity politics. Dialect Anthropol 47, 85–96 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-023-09683-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-023-09683-y