Phenomenology and Mind

The Journal Phenomenology and Mind invites submissions for a special issue on “Structural Injustice: Reflections on Social Groups, Identity and Intersectionality”.

Traditionally, the debate on social justice has been largely dominated by matters of distributive justice. From a structural perspective, distributive justice focuses on social groups as differentiated along economic and productive dimensions. However, it has long been stressed that, without denying the importance of distributive justice, the emphasis on the economic dimension of justice overshadows many other axes − gender, race, disability, age, ethnicity, etc. − by virtue of which individuals may be a victim of injustice (Young 1990, 2001). While in the case of economic differences eliminating the disadvantage of an economic group coincides with eliminating the group itself, there is nothing so straightforward in the case of social groups whose identification depends on disadvantages determined by identity characteristics (Haslanger 2012). At least in some cases, in particular in the case of gender identities, the existence of a social group seems rather to depend on demands for recognition, and gender identities are primarily self-ascribed (Dembroff 2020).

Besides economic disadvantages, the injustice that members of certain social groups suffer seems to reside as much in social prejudices, as in actual instances of mistreatment. In these instances, injustices take various (and often intersected) forms. Oppression can be institutionalized and/or primarily encompass a symbolic harm perpetuated toward disadvantaged groups. Further, the harm can be directed toward individuals qua members of a specific group and can involve systemic forms of misrecognition often coupled with unwarranted biases regarding the epistemic credibility of these individuals (Dotson 2011; Fricker 2007, 2013). In general terms, addressing injustices related to identity groups requires clarifying the self-reinforcing dynamics between structural disadvantages and identity-based prejudices.

The volume aims at investigating the ways in which oppression, marginalization, and misrecognition are determined and/or fostered by practices, social standards, and attitudes concerning intersectional identities and how we should conceptualize social groups under these circumstances.