Paths of critique

identities, feminisms and emancipatory projects

Abstract

In the contemporary scenario, the critical power of the social sciences has come under challenge. On the one hand, democracy is acknowledged as an agonistic arena (Mouffe) where consensus might mean its demise. On the other hand, the fragmentation of demands weakens democratic achievements, undermining the concept of emancipation. To understand this, we focus on feminisms and their approaches to the emancipatory content of identity politics. We discuss the dangers of conflating the affirmation of identities with the term "identitarianism," which, in complicity with essentialisms, poses a risk of extremisms. In other perspective, we seek to demonstrate how criticism, in an ecumenical sense, does not generate an antagonism between emancipation and identity, presenting the diversity of arguments from feminist critical theory to post-structuralist feminism and black feminisms that have never been so eloquent. Finally, we propose "listening" as a foundational condition for those who intend to self-identify as part of the project of critical theories.