Contracting imaginations: on the political and hermeneutical monopoly of identity politics

Abstract

Identity politics has become a prevailing, almost monopolising, approach in many contemporary movements for social justice. Such prevalence calls for an urgent critical analysis of its proposal and outcomes. This paper seeks to contribute to this study by exploring two assumptions that underlie identity politics as a political and conceptual approach: first, that forms of subjection are always or predominantly articulated around identities; second, that there is a “we” constituted around such identities, which is homogenous and almost a self-evident given. Through an analysis of two examples from contemporary mainstream feminism (affirmative action and punitivism), it assesses the defence of identity as a sufficient and/or necessary hermeneutical tool to understand oppression and resistance, as well as the actual reach of the identity-based “we” affirmed by feminism. It concludes that countering the monopoly of identity politics by rescaling identity as one factor among others, and identity-based tactics as some among many, is a better approach to struggles for social justice.