Difference

The concept of difference seeks to recognize social diversity. Its growing profile is underpinned by a refiguration of the discourses of “multi,” “commonality,” and “universalism” in a variety of arenas and forms. Spurred by the postmodern turn, difference has been a key way to problematize universal categories such as “women” and “men.” An analysis of gender, race, and other categories of difference points to the multilayered and fractured construction of collective and individual identities. The current interest in difference has in part been because of a belief that as a concept it can illuminate social diversity, but also in part because of its importance in recent recognition claims. Debates here have highlighted the relational underpinnings of diversity. What has attracted attention is “what are significant markers of difference in society” and “how are they made so”? The creation of difference on the basis of race, gender, or class at social, economic, and political levels is crucial, not as individual characteristics but insofar as they are primary organizing principles of a society which locates and positions groups within opportunity structures. They can unlock how social inequality is created

Diversity (politics · Epistemology · Inequality · Political science · Politics · Postmodernism · Race (biology · Significant difference · Social group · Social science · Sociology · Universalism · Variety (cybernetics · Anthropology · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Law · Mathematics · Psychology · Social Psychology

• The Politics of Recognition

  Open Access•Charles Taylor•Multiculturalism•1994

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• Writing and Difference

  Jacques Derrida, Alan S Bass et al.•Writing and Difference•1980

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