The Experience of Injustice: A Theory of Recognition

303 Pages·2019·4.545 MB·English

by  Emmanuel Renault

E XPERIENC E
THE
I NJUSTICE
OF
a theory of recognition
EMMANUEL RENAULT
THE EXPERIENCE OF INJUSTICE
NEW DIRECTIONS IN CRITICAL THEORY
NEW DIRECTIONS IN CRITICAL THEORY
Amy Allen, General Editor
New Directions in Critical Theory presents outstanding classic and contemporary texts in the
tradition of critical social theory, broadly construed. The series aims to renew and advance the
program of critical social theory, with a particular focus on theorizing contemporary struggles
around gender, race, sexuality, class, and globalization and their complex interconnections.
For a complete list of books in this series, see pages 273–274
The Experience
of Injustice
A THEORY OF RECOGNITION
Emmanuel Renault
TRANSLATED BY
Richard A. Lynch
Columbia University Press
New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
L’expérience de l’injustice
Reconnaissance et clinique de l’injustice
by Emmanuel Renault
© Editions La Découverte, Paris, France, 2004.
Copyright © 2019 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-231-17706-1 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-231-54898-4 (e-book)
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee
Cover photo: Nikolas Georgiou / © Alamy
CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE vii
PREFACE xi
Introduction
Political Philosophy and the Clinic of Injustice 1
PART I
Injustice and the Denial of Recognition
Chapter One
Social Movements and Critique of Politics 33
Chapter Two
The Aporias of Social Justice 65
Chapter Three
The Institutions of Injustice 94
vi
CONTENTS
PART II
The Politics of Identity and Politics in Identity
Chapter Four
Identity as the Experience of Injustice 137
Chapter Five
A Defense of Identity Politics 157
PART III
Social Suffering
Chapter Six
Social Critique as a Voice for Suffering 181
Chapter Seven
Recognition and Psychic Suffering 202
Conclusion
Critique as a Voice Against Injustice 224
NOTES 231
INDEX 261
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
A few terms central to Emmanuel Renault’s argument merit a brief discus-
sion in advance—although quite succinctly expressed in French, they are
difficult to render simply and concisely into natural English.
The first of these is dominés et demunis, of which Renault makes system-
atic use as a conceptual pair, and which is translated here either as “domi-
nated and deprived,” or frequently, as “the dominated and the deprived.”
In Renault’s usage, dominés refers to individuals or groups living under
domination or oppression, and démunis to those suffering the loss or
deprivation of social resources, networks, and supports—including, but
not merely limited to poverty, or loss of material resources. As Renault
explains, one can be more or less endowed with resources for living under
forms of domination and for facing life’s hazards but also suffer from depri-
vation by being marginalized or excluded by forms of social domination;
one can therefore suffer from deprivation quite independently of the fact of
being oppressed. (Apart from preserving the alliteration, the English “dom-
inated” seems preferable to “oppressed” because the latter can be both too
strong and too narrow—not every space or state of domination is a space
or state of oppression.) Similarly, “the deprived” seems preferable to “the
poor,” since it indicates that a poverty of social resources, and not merely
material poverty, is intended. Renault uses dominés et démunis both as a
pair and independently—the latter, “the deprived,” is discussed in more
detail below.
Another of Renault’s central concepts that is difficult to express elegantly
and succinctly in English is dynamiques revendicatives—the dynamics or
viii
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
process by which demands are developed and articulated, “the dynamics
of formulating demands.” The French noun revendication carries the sense
of a demand or a claim, as in an actionable claim for justice; the adjectival
form revendicatif carries a sense of dissent or protest. But the English “dis-
sent” is closer to the French notion of contestation than revendication, and
does not capture Renault’s usage here (although he does use the adjectival
revendicatif, in the sense of dissent or contestation, in other contexts). The
phrase dynamiques revendicatives, “the dynamics of formulating demands,”
refers to the process by which negative experiences or feelings (of injustice)
are cognitively transformed into normative and social demands (for jus-
tice, or for a new understanding of justice). One of the central tasks of the
book is to explain this process, one that leads from a negative experience
to demands, by distinguishing various practical dynamics (refusal, avoid-
ance, or accommodation), cognitive processes (reinterpretation of a given
context or norms), and normative dynamics (efforts to express what is at
stake in these negative experiences).
Another important concept that is difficult to translate adequately and
directly is action protestataire or agir protestataire—translated here as
“action in protest” or “protest action.” This term does not merely denote
something like a strike or a protest march (though these can function as
examples), but rather a broader category of action in resistance to some-
thing, action that pushes back against or refuses to accept a negative experi-
ence, whether that action is cognitive or social, whether it is carried out by
an individual or a group.
Collective de travail (a concept that becomes significant in chapter 5),
translated here as a “work collective,” is yet another concept for which no
direct English equivalent exists. The idea encompasses a team of workers—
perhaps, for example, all the workers on a factory floor or on a shift, or all
the employees at the same level of a corporate hierarchy. English terms that
capture the idea partially but not fully, (but that could nevertheless help an
American reader begin to see the term’s extension, include “co-workers,”
“colleagues,” “shift crew,” and “project team.” The notion of a “work collec-
tive” also encompasses some of the elements of solidarity represented in
labor unions and collective bargaining units (though these are quite differ-
ent institutional structures than a “work collective”): one can look to the
other members of one’s “work collective” for mutual respect, understand-
ing, and recognition of one’s skills, contributions, and accomplishments,
ix
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
even when the latter are overlooked or unrecognized by management.
While “work collective” is a neologism in English (and one that might
even misleadingly connote ideas of “collectivization” to American ears),
this term has been employed in recent work by Renault and others (where
it is briefly defined as “a number of coworkers who are brought together . . .
by technical aspects of the tasks themselves”1), and so is also used here.
Two other related terms are the French expressions les “sans” (literally,
“those without”) and luttes des “sans” (“the struggles of those without”). Les
“sans”—a fairly common term in French political theory—refers to peo-
ple who have virtually no material or social resources, and encompasses
groups such as the homeless (les sans-logement, “those without housing”),
the unemployed (les chômeurs or les sans-travail, “those without work”),
and undocumented immigrants (les sans-papiers, “those without [legal]
documentation”). All are typically groups and individuals who have been
marginalized, rendered invisible, and forgotten by society. At the author’s
suggestion, and in resonance with the pair “dominated and deprived” (dis-
cussed above), les “sans” is here glossed as “the deprived,” and les luttes des
“sans” as “the struggles of the deprived.” While these English glosses do lose
some of the vividness and directness of the French, they nevertheless fit
within the conceptual landscape Renault is presenting here.
“Psychic suffering” (souffrance psychique—another critical concept
in Renault’s argument) may also sound a bit awkward in English; at first
glance, “psychological suffering” would seem an easier, more familiar
translation, one that avoids any unintended resonances with “psychics” or
the paranormal, for example. However, souffrance psychique is a technical
term in Renault’s usage, denoting a particular form of psychological suffer-
ing (as is elaborated in more detail here and elsewhere2), and so “psychic
suffering” is used here as well.
A final term that merits mention in advance is the idea of a porte-parole,
translated here both as a “spokesperson” and as a “voice.” Though the term
itself does not appear until the later chapters of the book, the ideas behind
it shape Renault’s argument from the opening pages of the introduction,
when he frames political philosophy’s approach as a choice between seeking
consensus or taking sides. Both English terms (“spokesperson” and “voice”)
capture something of Renault’s usage here: he understands critical theory’s
role to be that of a spokesperson—giving voice to concerns in political or
theoretical arenas where they would otherwise not be recognized. But in