Political ethics for activists
A new book by Dr Carolyn D’Cruz aims to shift the way debate in politics and ethics is framed. After spending some years campaigning as an activist, Dr D’Cruz has written the book Identity Politics in Deconstruction (Ashgate Publishing, England, 2008) to rethink connections between practice and theory.
One of her major points is that political movements have irreconcilable differences within them. ‘There is a huge tendency for people to articulate politics in terms of “for and against” positions,’ Dr D’Cruz says. ‘This dominant way of thinking through wedged politics is not helpful.’
A lecturer in Gender, Sexuality and Diversity Studies, her research interests include identity and diversity, continental philosophy, censorship, theory and practice, democracy and semiotics.
The book looks at the way political movements are constructed and can be related to campaigns as varied as fighting over one’s birthright as a nation, such as in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; lobbying for civil rights, for example in gay and lesbian campaigns for marriage; and the struggle for citizenship recognition by asylum seekers.
Oppression, exclusion are key factors
The common thread between these movements is that politics is based on identities, she says. People get involved in identity politics when they experience oppression because they are marked with a social identity that operates through a process of exclusion. ‘For example, when the “second wave” of the women’s movement manifested in the sixties, a lot of women were experiencing frustration at being confined to the domestic sphere and not getting recognition for their unpaid work. They formed groups to connect personal experiences to social and political restrictions.’
Yet processes for effecting social change based on these experiences is far more complex. ‘Everyone has different ideas about change. In the gay and lesbian movement, for example, some people have been campaigning for marriage. Others have different priorities. Marriage for them is a form of assimilating into an oppressive heterosexual framework.’
Membership within identity movements is also a contentious issue. ‘I’ve seen people argue for hours over who can attend a march. Agreement, in such cases, is an impossible path. This also raises the question of representation: who can speak for whom? It changes for each circumstance. A deconstructive approach to these questions concerns experiencing the impossibility of “outlining” a programmatic politics and dealing with it.’
Dr D’Cruz says the book is aimed at academic activists, the last chapter focusing on the refugee. It draws on Jaques Derrida’s work on the ‘ancient laws’ of hospitality and on ethical relationships articulated by Emmanuel Levinas.
‘When you think of how we encounter people, we experience the other as someone who puts us into question,’ Dr D’Cruz says. ‘He or she asks for a response. If a stranger arrives at your door, does that person need to declare who they are before you let them in?
‘This is the difference between conditional and unconditional hospitality. What if the person needs refuge? What if he or she has no papers? Unconditional hospitality does not ask for peoples’ papers before ensuring they are safe.
‘This kind of ethics is not programmatic or based on a set of rules. All you have is the naked face of the other to guide you.’