From diversity to difference: structural dilemmas of identity politics

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to critically assess some problems affecting the structure of a number of arguments advocating what has been named as identity politics or the politics of difference, and especially those formulated by Iris Marion Young. While such accounts have claimed recognition of different identities as ground for demanding a fundamental reform of the current perceived dominant liberal framework, they have yet to solve a number of issues that pertain to the structure itself of these arguments. Despite some valid criticisms related to the way in which identity indeed plays a crucial role in the contemporary power and legitimacy contexts, these accounts, through their normative discourse of culture and difference, seem to reinforce the very reasons they have identified for those problems. Furthermore, by focusing on culture and group identity as their primary concern, instead of on individuals, such accounts have replaced the modern subjects of political justification without clearly assuming or justifying this move. The politics of difference also needs to offer a better explanation of how the underlying common framework for pluralism can be preserved. Finally, such accounts are invoking the concept of "culture": notoriously indeterminate, it undermines their efforts to offer formal criteria of what cultures are, what membership consists in, and which legal rights should correspond to different contexts.