Abstract
Through an analysis and an application of Parekh, Tully, and Honneth’s theories of recognition, a new account of “just integration” will be provided based on normative values of inclusion and individualization. The normative problem that the immigrant population created in modern societies today is the direction of the course that the transformation of the political institutions and societal values of the host country should take in the face of cultural pluralism for the sake of justice, inclusion, and equality. This study approaches the ideal of just integration not as for the sake of security or the preservation of liberal values which may be achieved through implementation of specific immigration policies, but as a transformative process through which collective individuals change societal values as equal members of society in the face of misrecognition.
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Notes
- 1.
Honneth is not alone in pointing out the lack of emphasis on relations of work and its social and psychological effect on individual autonomy. In the same vein, Weeks (2011) in her seminal work titled The Problem with Work argues that work is not only an economic necessity but also social convention and disciplinary apparatus that demands individuals to either work or to live with someone who works . Individuals who are excluded and discriminated can reinterpret the norms of social convention of work . Moreover, Muirhead (2004) agrees with Honneth that the value of work for the creation of a healthy self-relation. In his book titled Just Work, he sets out to investigate the account of meaningful work and analyzes the term “social fit” as the foundation of just work .
- 2.
Honig (2001) explores how immigrant identity as a foreigner legitimizes host country’s political system. She looks at the “symbolic politics of foreignness” (p. 6) and its applications for democratic theory. Honig rightly points out the fact that immigrants’ foreignness both supplements and threatens the unity of host country. Honig explores the transitionary character of the immigrant with a psychoanalytic study of the Book of Ruth. She claims that for democratic expansions to be successful, both receiving population and immigrants should mutually engage “their home-yearning.” I agree with Honig about the necessity to acknowledge the transitionary character of immigrants and their psychological feelings of loss and mourning. For further discussion: see Honig (2001)
- 3.
To my knowledge, there is only one forthcoming article on immigrant identity in political theory literature. Von Vacano employs a Nietzschean perspective to point out the ressentiment problem for the formation of immigrant identity. The theory of ressentiment tries to explain the direction and the processes of immigrant identity formation within the host society. I have several problems with Von Vacano’s approach. First of all, Von Vacano does not explain what he means by “identity” in general. Second, I agree with Von Vacano’s diagnosis about the conditions specific to the immigrants, which limit the positive relation to self. Immigrants need to reconstruct their understanding of the self when they settle down in their new country. Von Vacano calls this dualistic position where immigrants are in between neither a full-fledged citizen of the host country nor they completely unattached their idea of the self from their origin country. Unlike Von Vacano, I claim that immigrants are in a more complicated position that one can call dualistic. Third, Von Vacano presents the cultural activities of ethno-cultural groups within the host country as the actualization of this kind of dualistic immigrant identity. In that sense, ethno-cultural groups appear as the dialectical knot of this dualistic situation of immigrant condition, a place where an immigrant achieves the self-identification. However, if immigrants do this willingly or unwillingly is out of context of Von Vacano’s analysis.
See Von Vacano, Diego (2010).
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Goksel, G.U. (2018). What Is Just Integration?. In: Integration of Immigrants and the Theory of Recognition. International Political Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65843-8_3
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