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Work and the Politics of Misrecognition

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Abstract

In this article we examine the idea of a politics of misrecognition of working activity. We begin by introducing a distinction between the kind of recognition and misrecognition that attaches to one’s identity, and the kind of recognition and misrecognition that attaches to one’s activity. We then consider the political significance of the latter kind of recognition and misrecognition in the context of work. Drawing first on empirical research undertaken by sociologists at the Institut für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt, we argue for a differentiated concept of recognition that shows the politics of misrecognition at work to be as much a matter of conflict between modes of recognition as it is a struggle for recognition as opposed to non-recognition. The differentiated concept of recognition which allows for this empirical insight owes much to Axel Honneth’s theory. But as we argue in the section that follows, this theory is ambiguous about the normative content of the expectations of recognition that are bound up with the activity of working. This in turn makes it unclear how we should understand the normative basis of the politics of the misrecognition of what one does at work. In the final sections of the article, we suggest that the psychodynamic model of work elaborated by Christophe Dejours and others at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris can shed light on this matter; that is to say, it can help to clarify the normative significance and political stakes of the misrecognition of working activity.

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Notes

  1. Respect at work and rights at work are also key components of the ‘Decent Work’ agenda of the International Labour Organization. See http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/decent-work-agenda/lang--en/index.htm.

  2. This position is set out most clearly in Honneth (2010).

  3. For a brief influential account of these changes, see Sennett (2006), and, for more detail, Boltanski and Chiapello (2005). For criticism of Sennett’s interpretation, and more a sceptical view of the extent of the transformation of work, see Doogan (2009).

  4. See Honneth (1995a), in which he distinguishes three fundamental forms of recognition: love, respect and esteem. Voswinkel’s (2012) distinction between admiration and appreciation effectively introduces a further level of differentiation within the realm of esteem.

  5. On the notion of semantic surplus, see Honneth’s contribution to Fraser and Honneth (2003, esp. p. 150, pp. 244–245).

  6. See the summation of Dejours’ ‘psychodynamic’ model in the recently published two volumes (2009b). For a synthetic presentation of Dejours’ model, see Deranty (2010).

  7. As analysed in particular by Ricoeur (2007, pp. 219–246).

  8. See Searle-Chatterjee’s classical study (1979), which documents the cultural identity developed by one of the lowest classes of untouchables around their work activity.

  9. See Zarifian’s study of the conflicts around the restructuration of the telecommunication public company in France during the 1990s (2009, pp. 7–31).

  10. For reasons of space, we are not addressing here the third form of recognition, ‘diagonal’ recognition between worker and client, which has become increasingly significant with the shift to service work in large spheres of the world of work.

  11. For further discussion of the question of normative validity in the context of work, see Deranty (2012) and Smith (2012).

  12. This is the core thesis in his now famous account of the social and political situation in France in the last two decades, in Dejours (2009a).

  13. Honneth (2007) makes a similar point about the importance of cooperative participation in the social division of labour for democracy.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Simon Thompson and Wendy Martineau for valuable feedback on an earlier draft of this paper.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia

    Nicholas H. Smith & Jean-Philippe Deranty

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  1. Nicholas H. Smith
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  2. Jean-Philippe Deranty
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Correspondence to Nicholas H. Smith.

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Smith, N.H., Deranty, JP. Work and the Politics of Misrecognition. Res Publica 18, 53–64 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-012-9185-3

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