The Morality of Recognition: Adolescent Slum-Dwellers Discuss a TV Series Representation of Their Lives

Abstract

This chapter investigates the morality of recognition. A number of critics are distressed by Honneth’s proposition that anchors critical political claims in a theory of subjective identity and self-realization. Many of these critiques are based around the understanding that the notion of recognition — as proposed by Honneth — results in the essentialization and objectification of identities (Düttmann, 2000; Fraser, 2000, 2001, 2003a; Markell, 2003). My collaborator and I argue that several of these analyses are grounded in entirely different notions of identity and recognition, and we contend that Honneth’s program provides fairly extensive theoretical insights into the vulnerability and contingency of subjective formation. These concepts help investigate the disagreement and open-endedness that characterize struggle for recognition in social interactions.