Identity/Difference Politics
How Difference Is Produced, and Why It Matters
La description
Theories of liberal multiculturalism have come to dominate debates
about identity and difference politics in contemporary western
political theory. Identity/Difference Politics offers a
nuanced critique of these debates by switching 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.