Identity/Difference Politics How Difference Is Produced, and Why It Matters
Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Rita Dhamoon teaches in the Department of Philosophy and Political Science at the University of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia. She is co-editor of Sexual Justice/Cultural Justice: Critical Perspectives in Political Theory and Practice."Dhamoon develops an "account of meaning-making" that attunes us to the complexities of power as it interfaces with cultural patterns. With new and compelling case studies, she moves us out of the linguistic focus of Kymlicka and Taylor in Canada and the religious/ethnic focus of many American tracts. - Hawley Fogg-Davis, author of The Ethics of Transracial Adoption"
Theories of liberal multiculturalism have come to dominate debates about identity and difference politics in recent contemporary western political theory. This book offers a nuanced critique of these debates by questioning liberal multiculturalism’s preoccupation with culture and, just as important, its unintended consequences.
Identity/Difference Politics switches the focus from culture to power. Issues of power are examined through accounts of meaning-making – those processes through which meanings of difference are produced, organized, and regulated. Other forms of identity/difference such as whiteness, ableism, gender, and heteronormativity establish the analytic and normative value of Dhamoon’s alternative theoretical framework, and reveal that an exclusive preoccupation with culture can dissolve into essentialism – which too often provides a rationale for state regulation of groups deemed to be too different. Students of contemporary political theory, multiculturalism, identity politics, Canadian politics and culture, dis/ablity studies, critical race theory, and feminist and gender theory will find it an invaluable resource.
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The Problem with “Culture”
2 The Politics of Meaning-Making
3 Re-Thinking Accounts of the “Immigrant”
4 Regulating Difference: Accounts of Deaf and Trans-sexual Difference
5 Accounts of Racialized Gendering: Domination and Relational Othering
6 Possibilities for Democracy: Toward Disruption
Notes
References
Index