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Against economy–culture dualism: an argument from raced economies

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Abstract

jats:p In this article, I argue that a mistaken economy–culture dualism underlies the pitting of identity politics against class. I propose we be ‘non-dualists’ instead, viewing economic distributions and cultural representations as importantly co-constitutive, since this non-dualism lets us best theorise the intersections of injustices like class and race. I argue that the most sophisticated dualist attempt to transcend class versus identity debates – Nancy Fraser’s ‘perspectival dualism’ – inadvertently instantiates ‘methodological whiteness’ and struggles to illuminate the intersections of race and class, overlooking how culturally specific representations and understandings importantly constitute economic structures and distributions. Jodi Dean’s contemporary restaging of the class versus identity debate, I suggest, repeats some of Fraser’s dualist missteps. To end, I propose a non-dualist approach which understands the economy as an ideological objectification of certain practices – an objectification which naturalises relations of raced, classed and gendered domination. Building on social reproduction currents of thought, I suggest a counter-hegemonic understanding of the economy – one informed by anti-racist, feminist and socialist rethinkings of what constitutes labour and who constitutes the ‘public’ of the economy’s imaginaries of public value. </jats:p>

Description

Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council; FundRef: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000267

Keywords

4702 Cultural Studies, 44 Human Society, 47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4405 Gender Studies, 4410 Sociology

Journal Title

Feminist Theory

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1464-7001
1741-2773

Volume Title

22

Publisher

SAGE Publications