Identity, Difference Politics: How Difference is Produced, and Why It Matters

Theories of liberal multiculturalism have come to dominate debates about identity and difference politics in contemporary western political theory. Identity/Difference Politics offers a nuanced critique of these debates by switching the focus from culture to power. Issues of power are examined through accounts of meaning-making -- those processes through which meanings of difference are produced, organized, and regulated. Other forms of identity-difference such as whiteness, ableism, gender, and heteronormativity establish the analytic and normative value of Dhamoon's alternative theoretical framework and reveal that an exclusive preoccupation with culture can dissolve into essentialism -- which too often provides a rationale for state regulation of groups deemed to be too different.--Rita Dhamoon teaches in the Department of Philosophy and Political Science at the University of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia.-