Structural Injustice
Paper for the AHRC Centre for Law, Gender, and Sexuality
Intersectionality Workshop, 21/22 May 2005, Keele University, UK
Structural Injustice and the Politics of Difference
Iris Marion Young, University of Chicago, iyoung@uchicago.edu, April 2005 As a social movement tendency in the 1980’s, the politics of difference has involved the claims of feminist, anti-racist, and gay liberation activists that the structural inequalities of gender, race, and sexuality were not well perceived or combated by the dominant paradigm of equality and inclusion. In this dominant paradigm, the promotion of justice and equality requires non-discrimination: the application of the same principles of evaluation and distribution to all persons regardless …show more content…
Both versions share some concerns. They both challenge a difference-blind liberalism. They both argue that where group difference is socially significant for issues of conflict, domination, or advantage, that equal respect may not imply treating everyone in the same way. Public and civic institutions may be either morally required or permitted to notice social group difference, and to treat members of different groups differently for the sake of promoting equality or freedom. Despite these similarities, it is important to be clear on the differences between a politics of positional difference and a politics of cultural difference, for several reasons. In recent discussions of a politics of difference, I think that analysts sometimes merge the two models, or attribute features specific to one to the other as well. Such confusions can have the consequence that intended criticisms of one or the other are misdirected because critics misidentify them or import features of one into the …show more content…
It is not uncommon for migrants who perceive themselves and are perceived by others as “different” from the majority groups already residing in the places to which they migrate to choose to live near one another in neighborhood enclaves. I refer to this process as “clustering,” and the urban residential patterning it produces might be considered a manifestation of cultural differentiation. While residential segregation often overlaps with or builds on such clustering processes, segregation is a different and more malignant process. Even when not produced by legally enforced spatial exclusion, segregation is a process of exclusion from residential neighborhood opportunity that leaves the relatively worse residential possibilities for members of denigrated groups. The actions of local and national government, private developers and landlords, housing consumers, and others conspire – not necessarily by intention – to concentrate members of these denigrated groups. The result is that dominant groups derive privileges such as more space, more pleasant space, greater amenities, stable and often increasing property values, and so
Intersectionality Workshop, 21/22 May 2005, Keele University, UK
Structural Injustice and the Politics of Difference
Iris Marion Young, University of Chicago, iyoung@uchicago.edu, April 2005 As a social movement tendency in the 1980’s, the politics of difference has involved the claims of feminist, anti-racist, and gay liberation activists that the structural inequalities of gender, race, and sexuality were not well perceived or combated by the dominant paradigm of equality and inclusion. In this dominant paradigm, the promotion of justice and equality requires non-discrimination: the application of the same principles of evaluation and distribution to all persons regardless …show more content…
Both versions share some concerns. They both challenge a difference-blind liberalism. They both argue that where group difference is socially significant for issues of conflict, domination, or advantage, that equal respect may not imply treating everyone in the same way. Public and civic institutions may be either morally required or permitted to notice social group difference, and to treat members of different groups differently for the sake of promoting equality or freedom. Despite these similarities, it is important to be clear on the differences between a politics of positional difference and a politics of cultural difference, for several reasons. In recent discussions of a politics of difference, I think that analysts sometimes merge the two models, or attribute features specific to one to the other as well. Such confusions can have the consequence that intended criticisms of one or the other are misdirected because critics misidentify them or import features of one into the …show more content…
It is not uncommon for migrants who perceive themselves and are perceived by others as “different” from the majority groups already residing in the places to which they migrate to choose to live near one another in neighborhood enclaves. I refer to this process as “clustering,” and the urban residential patterning it produces might be considered a manifestation of cultural differentiation. While residential segregation often overlaps with or builds on such clustering processes, segregation is a different and more malignant process. Even when not produced by legally enforced spatial exclusion, segregation is a process of exclusion from residential neighborhood opportunity that leaves the relatively worse residential possibilities for members of denigrated groups. The actions of local and national government, private developers and landlords, housing consumers, and others conspire – not necessarily by intention – to concentrate members of these denigrated groups. The result is that dominant groups derive privileges such as more space, more pleasant space, greater amenities, stable and often increasing property values, and so