Work, esteem recognition and multiculturalism

pp. 105-117

in: Bona Anna, Honneth and everyday intercultural (mis)recognition, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

This chapter, the final chapter of Part I, brings together the key themes of the book, work, esteem recognition and multiculturalism, to establish a framework via which the project's research findings can be critically analysed. The previous chapter offered a brief introduction to everyday multiculturalism, the research approach taken in this book, and also delineated significant perspectival parallels between that tradition and Honneth's recognition model. Meanwhile, Chap.  2 provided an outline of the main features of recognition theory as they pertain to this inquiry, the nub of which is the idea that subjects ideally develop positive self-relations, and therefore self-realisation and autonomy, through a dialogic process involving, crucially, recognition from fellow social subjects. It also established the usefulness of Honneth's concept of contested value horizon, in the sphere of esteem recognition, for investigations of recognition relations in intercultural contexts. In this sphere, wherein social valuation of individual distinctions, expertise and contributions is understood as constitutive in the growth of self-esteem, Honneth has specifically pinpointed the domain of work.