Embodied Recognition

The politics of recognition is at an impasse. Demands for justice continue to be hampered by the failure of institutional forms of affirmation to generate appropriate experiences of agency and well-being in the recognized. Critics argue that although institutional patterns of recognition are necessary they consistently reproduce the experience of cultural and economic denigration they seek to resolve. This book argues that the breakdown of these practices can be traced back to a general failure of recognition theories to account for the multi-dimensional experience of affirmation and shame. Through an exploration of contemporary philosophical models of selfhood and empirical work in cognition and affect it is argued that conflicting experiences of shame and affirmation can emerge out of two distinct expressive modes or intersubjective 'moments'. Through an appreciation of concurrent 'narrative' and 'phenomenal' moments we can make sense of how recognition both affirms and harms. This framework provides a necessary starting point for theorists and policy-makers to rethink institutions and render the politics of recognition more just.