Recognition and harm Struggles for recognition and grievance politics

Abstract

Abstract The starting point of this article is one of Júlia Szalai’s most important ideas, namely that recognition/ being recognized is among the most basic of human needs. Consequently, when writing about a group that supposedly suffers from a lack of recognition, the social scientist – however committed to the principle of “value-free and apolitical” scientific knowledge – may unintentionally become part of the “struggle for recognition” her/himself. The author concurs with these thoughts until this point, though may place the emphasis rather on commitment than on reflexion concerning the moral-political consequences. However, approaching the issue as a sociologist rather than a philosopher or a committed intellectual, several problems arise. First of all, neither recognition, nor its absence, can objectively be stated, as it is a phenomenon open for interpretation. According to Axel Honneth (1997), it is hard to judge what counts as recognition, but it is a lot easier to know what counts as the refusal of recognition and non-recognition. But is this really the case? Is it not possible that the interpretations that are developed in a certain discursive space and which classify certain acts or manifestations as recognition or non-recognition rather reflect the positions of the speaker, or their (personal or group) interests and strategies? The discourses about recognition politics often seem to implicitly assume two-player games: the group giving/refusing recognition (in a paradigmatic case, the majority) versus the group receiving recognition or suffering from the lack of recognition (in a paradigmatic case, the underprivileged minority). It may be worth expanding the circle of actors, and analysing the strategies and analyse them along more diverse strategies (the “radicals” for example never play only against “the other group”, but also pressurise their own “moderates”, etc.). Taking advantage of the special epistemological horizon of Hungary today, is it not possible that some representatives of “the majority” could play the role of victims too in some “grievance/ harm/non-recognition games”, meanwhile in other games they could give harm/offence at the same time? This is a theoretical article trying to detect the above issues by critically analysing the literature on recognition, and presenting some recognition/non-recognition/harm discourses in Hungary. Keywords: politics and theory of recognition, grievance/non-recognition/harm game, Júlia Szalai, Charles Taylor, Axel Honneth