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Political Reconciliation Through a Struggle for Recognition?

The University of Melbourne, Australia

In societies divided by a history of political violence, political reconciliation depends on transforming a relation of enmity into one of civic friendship. In such contexts, the discourse of recognition provides a ready frame in terms of which reconciliation might be conceived. Yet social theorists are divided in their assessment of the emancipatory potential of the struggle for recognition. For Charles Taylor, it establishes the possibility of reconciliation through a reciprocal dialogue oriented towards a fusion of horizons. Yet Frantz Fanon highlights the violent appropriation inherent in the logic of recognition that curtails the possibility of reconciliation. I demonstrate that Taylor’s optimism about the possibility of reconciliation through a struggle for recognition is unwarranted. For, although recognition provides the rough ground in terms of which an ethical encounter between former enemies becomes possible, it tends to fix the terms on which a reconciliatory politics might be enacted in a way that reduces the prospect of community between them. This argument is developed through a consideration of the legal-politics of reconciliation in Australia. But against Fanon’s pessimism, I advocate an agonistic reconciliation, according to which political actors would indefinitely postpone the moment of positive recognition while staking the prospect of community on the non-identity of the other, i.e. that quality in the other that cannot be reduced to the terms of identity or otherness.

Key Words: Charles Taylor • Frantz Fanon • Mabo • multiculturalism • radical democracy • recognition • reconciliation • transitional justice

Social & Legal Studies, Vol. 13, No. 4, 523-540 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0964663904047332


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