Recognition: identities, values and knowledge

The issues discussed above are inextricably related to what EJ scholars defined as a third axis of environmental justice: recognition. This concept remains under intense academic debate, and there is not a fixed definition of its nature and scope.

Different conceptualisations have been proposed, and I adopt here the operationalising concepts of recent empirical research on justice, such as:

"Recognition is about acknowledging people's distinct identities and histories and eliminating forms of cultural domination of some

groups over others. It calls for respect for social and cultural difference" (Sikor 2013; p. 7)

Sikor and Stahl (2012), for example, have identified the following traits in recognition-based struggles amongst forest rights activists:

"… Recognition of forest people's identities, experiences and visions.

(…) Respect for visions of desirable lifestyles, economies and forest landscapes... attention given to traditional knowledge (e.g. efforts in

Southeast Asia to validate shifting cultivation as a sustainable practice of land management)". (Sikor and Stahl 2011, p. 3)

50 Recognition has been knowingly under-theorized (Coolsaet, 2016; Fraser, 2017; Martin, Coolsaet, et al., 2016), and current theories focus mostly on European and North American social contexts. It is still an emerging concept in justice empirical research, especially across the Global South. The very meaning of the concept is still under active dispute (Kompridis, 2008), as well as its role as a separate justice dimension, or rather a common force underlying distributive and procedural issues (Honneth, 2004). “Some theorists of justice argue that recognition and respect are accounted for in theory. But no pragmatic discussion of recognition is offered, and no link between a lack of recognition and existing maldistributions is forthcoming”, as Schlosberg (2004) contends (p. 520). The extent to which misrecognition contributes to maldistributions, for instance, is not yet clear, which makes it an interesting concept to explore further in field research (Martin, Coolsaet, et al., 2016; Martin et al., 2014).

Whilst distributional justice is about the allocation of ‘goods’ and ‘bads’ in society, as I have explained in section 2.2.1., recognition generally concerns indivisible aspects of justice, such as specific values and ways of seeing and relating to the environment (Martinez-Alier, 2014). In sum, recognition is about acknowledging and respecting the experiences, visions and knowledge of different individuals and social groups, which are determinant for their identities. These definitions distinguish social and cultural elements of identity, but integrate both within the sphere of what should be recognised.

In Rawls’ theories of justice, recognition was taken account of through the inclusion of self-respect as the most important of primary goods in society (Middleton, 2006; Pogge & Kosch, 2007). However, for recent debates amongst political philosophers, Charles Taylor and Iris Young, subsuming recognition as merely one aspect of distribution is not satisfactory. Since the 1990s, there has been a particularly fierce debate between Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth. Both are widely regarded as representatives of the third generation of the Frankfurt school of critical social theory, following the legacy of Max Horkeimer and Jürgen Habermas. Each argues for a different approach to building an integrative social theory of justice. I will explain both their points of view in the following section.

Then, I will justify why I depart from Honneth’s perspective in establishing the conceptual and analytical framework of this thesis.

51 2.2.4.1 Monist and dualist models

Nancy Fraser views distribution and recognition as separate aspects of justice, the latter having gained ground more recently amongst activist movements and political fora. Her main argument resides in that what grants a fair distribution in society is not always compatible with measures to promote recognition. In her perspective, whereas distribution implies uniformity, recognition requires affirming the differences that distinguish a person or a social group. For Fraser, social struggles have shifted from a focus on the fair distribution of goods to a concern with indivisible aspects of reality. The trade-offs between distributional and recognitional justice require, therefore, that they be analysed as two separate, however intertwined, spheres (Fraser, 2001). She then proposes to bridge these two dimensions through the deontological principle of participatory parity, which will ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to express their views and needs.

For Hegelian scholars, though, such as Axel Honneth, only an integrative social theory of recognition will measure up to the challenge. Honneth defends a monist approach to justice as recognition. From this standpoint, recognition from an ‘other’ provides a pre-condition for the formation of a social identity, and therefore to both distributive outcomes and participation processes. In his book The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (1995), he distinguishes three mechanisms of social integration: emotional bonds (love);

granting of rights (legal sphere); and solidarity (shared orientation to values). Each of these dimensions will differ in relation to three elements: the medium of recognition; the form of the relation-to-self being made possible; and the potential for moral development. He then proposes a typology that identifies three basic forms of misrecognition: physical harm, denial of equal rights (exclusion), and denigration of individual and cultural ways of life.

Honneth contends that every mechanism that matters for social justice involves a form of recognition, encompassing intersubjective and legal spheres.

Drawing upon Hegel, he distinguishes three types of mutual recognition relationships, along with their contribution to individual self-realisation. The first relates to family and friendship relationships of love (inter-subjective recognition),

52 which foster self-confidence. The second is rights - e.g. of citizenship and property – linked to the legal (or formal) aspects of societal organisation - which contribute to raise self-respect. Finally, the third type pertains to social networks of solidarity, which foster social esteem, permeating both intersubjective and legal domains¹⁰.

These three spheres of recognition are not neatly separate, though. They interact dialectically, and inform each other. Intersubjective relations of mutual recognition, within a community, will eventually give way to a struggle for recognition, and ultimately to the incorporation of new social rights in the legal framework (formal recognition). For Honneth, the moral progress of a society is gradually improved through these struggles for recognition.

Honneth (2004) illustrates this reasoning with examples from history, in this case struggles for the recognition of specific economic activities as meaningful work. He notes that in ‘modern societies’ of Europe, for instance, social status has become detached from an achievement principle. In these societies, legal recognition as a full citizen does not depend upon the accumulation of personal wealth, as it once did. “There is moral progress when the social conditions of personal identity formation for the members of single groups or classes undergo lasting improvement through the partial conversion to a new principle [as legal rights]” (2014, p. 362). In this sense, the monist model of recognition endeavours to create a unifying theory of development.

From this standpoint, recognition goes beyond a politics of difference, or the institutional recognition of social minorities by a given political system. It is rather an underlying force, which pervades the social, economic, cultural and political domains of our identities, as well as our relations to others in society. In this context, the harm of maldistribution results from the misrecognition of an individual’s contribution to society (social disrespect). Here Honneth approaches the reasoning of the capabilities framework, focused on individual freedom of choice capabilities (Sen 1999, Nussbaum 2011). “In modern society”, he explains,

10 In “Freedom’s Right” (2014), Honneth discusses whether the market should be considered as a

“relational institution of social freedom” (a ‘solidarity’ network). He considers that the political removal of barriers to the capitalist economy, over the last two decades, “undermines the normative potential of the market”, and therefore represents a “social misdevelopment” (p.

177).

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“the conditions of individual self-realization are only socially secured when subjects are able to experience intersubjective recognition not only of their personal autonomy, but also of their specific needs and their particular capabilities”

(Honneth, 2004, p. 13). Development, here understood as moral progress of societies, is the result of political institutions recognising those needs and capabilities, making them “an imperative of legal recognition” (p. 362). In sum, societies evolve through a struggle for recognition, a productive and dynamic interaction between personal, legal and social spheres.

The debate between Fraser and Honneth culminated in the joint publication of a book in 2003, in which both scholars debated the advantages of adopting the monist or dualist model. In this volume, Honneth argued that separating experiences of injustice between recognition and distribution would introduce “a theoretically unbridgeable chasm between ‘symbolic’ and ‘material’ aspects of social reality”.

Instead, under an integrative theory of recognition, “the relation between the two can be seen as the historically mutable result of cultural processes of institutionalization” (Fraser and Honneth 2003: 113), he argued.

Honneth has been criticized for losing sight of the structural political and economic forces in society, while centring attention on the phenomenology of intersubjective interactions (Thompson, 2017). Conversely, Nancy Fraser’s stress on political and economic structures foregoes the psychological dimension of recognition, as well as important aspects of identity formation that are crucial for post-colonial contexts, argues James Fraser (2017). Following Schlosberg (2009), my view is that Fraser’s and Honneth’s approaches are not necessarily incompatible, and can be explored in complementary ways. The former derives from the Rawlsian tradition of analytic philosophy, whilst the latter is rooted in Hegelian, continental philosophy. Although environmental justice scholars have shown preference for Fraser’s model, some have pointed out a need to give more attention to intersubjective relationships in empirical research (Martin, Coolsaet, et al., 2016). In this thesis, I argue that Honneth’s model offers a useful contribution to fill that lacuna.

54 2.2.4.2 Labour, social identities and meaningful work

One crucial aspect of justice as recognition, central for the analysis in this thesis, is the respect of specific kinds of work as a meaningful contribution to the social order. This aspect revealed to be of foremost importance to understanding the social dynamics and responses to land concessions in Africa, as labour remains a central aspect for the formation of social identities and struggles for recognition in rural Mozambique. It is therefore a key theme in the empirical chapters of this thesis, especially chapter 6.

Honneth has been consolidating his analysis of the problem of labour in his most recent books, such as “The I in We (2012)” and “Freedom’s Right” (2014). In

“The I in We”, he laments that the welfare state, and social research as well, have been retreating from the question of labour, despite the fact that work is becoming increasingly precarious in our societies. Despite views that now social movements are concerned with the recognition of indivisible values, such as cultural differences, Honneth insists that distributional concerns remain at the core of social struggles. Social scientists, he adds, have been the ones shifting their attention. “The academia, including sociology, is increasingly turning its attention to processes of cultural transformation and away from production and labour issues (especially over the last 40 years)” (p. 56). The problem with this, he goes on, is that these trends simply go against the desires of the majority of the people, for whose identity, and idea of a ‘good life’, having a fulfilling job remains crucial.

The third form of realisation in Honneth’s model - along with self-confidence and social respect - is social esteem. He argues that feeling our abilities are useful to society as a whole is central for the integrity of social identity.

Conversely, the denigration of specific ways of life – their misrecognition - is one of the main forms of social disrespect. Only work that is organised in a certain way is deemed worthy of recognition by the whole of society, and ultimately by the political system (Honneth, 1995). Success and wealth achieved, as well as one’s position in the market (or an organisation) are determinant factors for the recognition of certain types of work (Voswinkel, 2012).

The intersubjective sphere of social relations is thus fundamental for distributional justice: “the rules organizing the distribution of material goods derive

55 from the degree of social esteem enjoyed by social groups, in accordance with institutionalized hierarchies of value, or a normative order. (…) Conflicts over distribution, as long as they are not merely concerned with just the application of institutionalized rules, are always symbolic struggles over the legitimacy of the sociocultural norms which determine the value of activities, attributes and contributions”, he argues (Honneth, 2001, p. 54). From this perspective, distribution conflicts can be understood as “the specific kind of struggle for recognition in which dispute is about the appropriate evaluation of individuals’ or groups’ social contributions” to culturally defined societal goals (Honneth, 2004, p. 353).