WPES: January 22, 2010
Welcome back to another semester of the Washington University Political Theory Workshop! This past Friday, WashU. Political Theory's own Clarissa Hayward and Ron Watson kicked off 2010 with a provoking paper that probed the implications resulting from commonly used terminology in the literature on Identity. The paper is an outgrowth of Hayward and Watson's collaboration in the summer of 2008, during which Watson was Hayward's research assistant. In their view, the debate over whether or not states should respond to the problem of identity by "recognizing" certain identities is framed incoherently.
Paper Summary
The current debate on identity recognition implicitly suggests that there exists a true identity which the state can actually recognize. As Hayward and Watson point out, however, the many identity communities composing the state are often as internally divided as the state itself. There are no "true" traditions and practices which compose the true boundaries of any identity community, and choosing narratives or traditions to support with state resources favors some sects of an identity community while disadvantaging the narratives and traditions of other sects. That argument hints at their next point, that recognition cannot be done in isolation. States inevitably "help produce and reproduce" identities in an ongoing process, and the literature on identity is therefore disadvantaged by wrongly implying that states can passively view that which they actively shape.
With this in mind, Hayward and Watson's paper discusses the criteria that states should use in order to to determine how to go about shaping identity, arguing that states should do so in ways that are consistent with democratic non-domination. The paper not only makes use of the nondomination literature, but also puts forth substantive revisions to Philip Pettit's original framework (1999). Whereas Petit's account of nondomination focuses primarily on the dominator's capacity to arbitrarily interfere with the dominated's choices, Hayward and Watson argue that this leads to results which are "counterintuitive to the point of absurdity" because the account only allows for the possibility of nondomination in situations where there exist institutional restraints--which may or may not be effective. This wrongly excludes the restraining influence of social norms--which may actually be more determinative of outcomes than institutions. Hayward and Watson's discussion of identity accordingly utilizes a formulation of nondomination that requires "the social capacity to revise power relations."
WPES Respondent: David Speetzen
The discussant for Friday's paper was David Speetzen of WUSTL Philosophy. Speetzen also presented a paper in the fall 2009 semester of WPES. [Click here to read the summary of Speetzen's paper and workshop discussion.] Speetzen's comments ranged widely over every aspect of the paper and were more substantive than can be done justice in this post. However, one of the most notable comments Speetzen made dealt with the paper's portrayal of the literature on recognition.
Hayward and Watson quote an Oxford English Dictionary definition of recognition as "acknowledging [identity's] existence or truth," but Speetzen held that this was not wholly applicable to the authors writing on identity. Speetzen pointed out that all the writers who discuss the methodology of state recognition focus on government intervention programs, which seems to anticipate Hayward and Watson's criticism that recognition cannot be done in a vacuum. Hayward and Watson responded that this still assumes that there is an authentic identity which can be recognized.
Hayward and Watson quote an Oxford English Dictionary definition of recognition as "acknowledging [identity's] existence or truth," but Speetzen held that this was not wholly applicable to the authors writing on identity. Speetzen pointed out that all the writers who discuss the methodology of state recognition focus on government intervention programs, which seems to anticipate Hayward and Watson's criticism that recognition cannot be done in a vacuum. Hayward and Watson responded that this still assumes that there is an authentic identity which can be recognized.
General Discussion
Jim Bohman of SLU Philosophy opened the general discussion questioning Hayward and Watson's standard of whether or not domination can be challenged. Bohman pointed to the useful example of untouchables in India, who are legally allowed to challenge their discrimination, but in social practice are still systematically dominated. Accordingly, Bohman termed the paper's standard as necessary, but not sufficient.
Ian MacMullen of WUSTL Political Theory questioned the overall framing of the project. Though the paper's title claims to be "against recognition," MacMullen felt that the paper did not oppose the act of recognition but rather pointed out that recognition is never the sole way that a state interacts with group identities. In MacMullen's words, the paper reads as a cautionary note on the dynamic nature of recognition: "it is a moving target, and you're moving it by aiming at it [...] but this doesn't mean that states don't recognize identity or that they shouldn't." Watson agreed that the paper is a cautionary note in the way MacMullen suggested, but Watson also felt that the paper goes even further in ways that aren't suggested within the recognition framework.
Kit Wellman of WUSTL Philosophy raised an interesting side discussion about the how the right of individuals to dissociate from their identity might interact with the paper's proposed framework. Hayward said that the right to exit should be thought of as including two aspects, disassociation from group membership ("I'm not part of this group") and disassociation from group practices ("the things that you associate with membership this group do not apply to me").
Conclusion
This semester of workshops is off to a strong start. Both attendance and participation at the first session were very high, and this is doubtless due to the quality of the paper put forth by Hayward and Watson. We wish them the best of luck with their project's next steps.
-Greg Allen
