Abstract
This third chapter is dedicated to understand the controversial theme of differences as a complex and contested term, through some different approaches. First, the chapter introduces the sociological approaches to differences, such as essentialism, social constructivism and psychoanalytic approach. Second, it introduces the concept of intersectionality to describe how the overlap of multiple social identities and differences can produce a different combination of discrimination, oppression and domination. Finally, the chapter deal with the concept of differences within a framework of social and spatial justice, through some specific discourses, including those of Iris Marion Young, Nancy Fraser and Edward Soja. This is a particularly complex perspective, characterised by a multiplicity of often-conflicting positions, which are not explained here. The reflections provided should not be understood as explanatory of this theme, but useful—because of their specificity—for the reading and understanding of differences, even before their treatment.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The concept of intersectionality has been, at least implicitly, at the centre of the discourse of black feminism and the anti-slavery movement of the nineteenth century, and was probably already present even before that. The famous speech ‘Is not I a woman?’ held in 1851 by Sojourner Truth–Isabella Baumfree (1797–1883)—at the Women’s convention in Akron, Ohio, is a good example. In recent times, there is a text written by the collective of black lesbian feminists Combahee River Collective, active in Boston between 1974 and 1980, on holding together oppression, racism and identity.
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The work of Young (who was a feminist and militant philosopher) is deeply situated: her reflections are primarily related to the themes of sexual difference, women’s oppression and the class, ethnic, age, health, culture and other differences that exist among women. It is also connected to a specific context, the United States. In opposition with the inclinations of a priori and abstract systems of justice, Young moves her investigation from reflection on the protests and claims made since the 1960s by movements of women, blacks, American Indians, gays, lesbians, the elderly and the disabled and, on another front, from environmental and pacifist struggles against American intervention in the rest of the world.
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It is interesting to observe, as Young points out, how dominant subjects do not even have to think of themselves as a group, they occupy an unmarked, neutral, apparently universal position that gives rise to a normalising gaze.
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In fact, in the various moments of the decision-making process, the presence of a ‘heterogeneous public’ (Young p. 116), which also gives voice to the different and oppressed, promotes social justice better than a homogeneous public in which differences are annulled. With respect to interest groups, which explicitly and exclusively aim to achieve their own objectives, social groups represent a decisive step forward in the democratic sense, because in the discussion between representatives of social groups everyone must clarify and justify their reasons, obtain and offer attention, compare notes, and then make decisions on the basis of shared principles of justice.
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In addition to Iris Marion Young, see also the perspective of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida and Donna Haraway.
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Mela, A., Toldo, A. (2019). Understanding Differences: Different Approaches, Intersectionality and Justice. In: Socio-Spatial Inequalities in Contemporary Cities. SpringerBriefs in Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17256-5_3
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