Making a Difference

Toward a Feminist Democratic Theory in the Digital Age

Bibliographic Data

ID6355083
AuthorsHans Asenbaum (0000-0001-9780-9735, University of Westminster, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume16
Issue1
Pages230-257
Publication date2020-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitics & Gender (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1743-923X • E-ISSN: 1743-9248
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1743923x18001010
OpenAlexW2912263352
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited56

This essay asks how the democratic ideal of inclusion can be achieved in societies marked by power asymmetries along the lines of identity categories such as gender and race. It revisits debates of difference democracy of the 1990s, which promoted inclusion through a politics of presence of marginalized social groups. This strategy inevitably entails essentializing tendencies, confining the democratic subject within its physically embodied identity. Difference democrats did not take notice of the parallel emerging discourse on cyberfeminism exploring novel identity configurations on the Internet. This essay augments the politics of presence with digital identity reconfigurations. Neither difference democrats nor cyberfeminists distinguish between various participatory sites. Drawing on conceptions of participatory spaces from development studies and deliberative democracy, this essay generates a typology differentiating between empowered spaces such as parliaments, invited spaces such as citizens' assemblies, and the claimed spaces of social movements. The democratic functions these spaces fulfil are best facilitated by three different modes of identity performance: identity continuation, identity negation, and identity exploration. A pluralization of participatory sites and modes of identity performance facilitates inclusion while tackling the essentializing tendencies in difference democracy

Aesthetics · Democracy · Epistemology · Identity (music · Inclusion (mineral · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Typology · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Law · Philosophy · Social Media and Politics