Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Adding insult to injury


Title: Adding insult to injury

Author: Nancy Fraser

ISBN: 9781859842232

Binding: Paper

Date: 2008

Publisher: Verso

Number of Pages: 360

Price: £16.99

Historically, leftwing accounts of injustice focussed primarily on economic harms, such as poverty, exploitation, and inequality. Recently, however, with the collapse of Communism and the rise of identity politics, attention has turned toward cultural harms, such as cultural imperialism, 'misrecognition,' and disrespect. New challenges for the left are raised: How to do justice to the legitimate claims of multiculturalism without abandoning the left's historic-and still indispensable-commitment to economic equality? How to broaden the understanding of injustice by adding (cultural) insult to (economic) injury? Adding Insult to Injury traces the debate sparked by Nancy Fraser's controversial effort to combine the social politics of equality and the cultural politics of difference, while probing the tensions between them. Introduced by Richard Rorty, the volume contains Fraser's influential essay 'From Redistribution to Recognition?'; critical responses by Judith Butler, Joseph Heath, Kevin Olson, Anne Phillips, and Iris Marion Young; and Fraser's rejoinders to them. The result is a wide-ranging and at times contentious exploration of alternative approaches to rebuilding the left.


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