Journal Article

IDENTITEIT EN WÊRELDLIKHEID: WAAROM IDENTITEITSPOLITIEK FAAL

Roodt, Vasti

2006

Overview

The purpose of this paper is to engage in critical reflection on identity politics as a mode of resistance to the experience of oppression, marginalisation or social exclusion. I argue that the notion of an identity-driven politics springs from a fundamentaldisaffection with the world as it is given to us, and that this disaffection is reinforced in the very attempt to overcome it. In support of my criticism I then try to sketchan alternative conception of identity and politics that does not run aground on the same difficulties. My argument consists of three parts. First, I delineate the theoreticalbackground to contemporary identity politics and point out a number of problematic assumptions that underlie such a conception of identity and politics. Second, I try to substantiate this initial critical assessment of identity politics by appealing to Hannah Arendt's analysis of the interplay between identity and worldliness. The purpose here isto show that identity is bound up with the world that lies between us as opposed to being tied to an exclusive place anyone occupies within the world. In the third and last part of the article I relate this notion of worldliness to Arendt's notion of amor mundi. I argue in this regard that amor mundi involves a reconciliation with the world as ithas been given to us, which nevertheless finds expression in judgements about what ought to appear in this world rather than a passive acceptance of the world as we find it. On the basis of this insight, I eventually try to demonstrate that Arendt offers us thepossibility of resisting marginalisation and oppression for the sake of the world we share with one another rather than for the sake of the affirmation of any pre-determined identity.

• Publisher: Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte (K.U. Leuven)