Collective ways of life depend on embodied practice, not just recognition of group identity.

Evidence

But my comments also reflect an unresolved tension: how can respect for individuals be ensured and conditions be fostered that nurture collective “ways of life”? This concern is not merely a matter of “recognition”—of the demand that one should be able to name oneself as a group and be confirmed by others as the bearer of that name, and thereby have one’s anxieties allayed. It is also a matter of embodied memories and practices that are articulated by traditions, and of political institutions through which these traditions can be fully represented. (The constituency represented does not have to be geographically continuous or univocal.) Our attention needs to be directed not so much at how identities are negotiated and recognized (for example through exploratory and constructive dialogue, as Charles Taylor has advocated). Rather, the focus should be on what it takes to live particular ways of life continuously, co-operatively, and unselfconsciously. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 868

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to my earlier reading on deep listening and place-based ways of knowing; also conversation with my ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ piece on dress as living tradition rather than identity label. — connects to: Housework can be experienced as harmony between hand and object; Becoming a commoner, visions, and social practices shape each other cyclically — Yael Arbell, The Circle of Commoning:…, 38; Commoning practices simultaneously produce group relations, member subjectivities, and material culture. — Yael Arbell, The Circle of Commoning:…, 70 (+6 more)
• SEED: Article angle: how to assess actual ways of life as thriving, rather than measuring recognition or representation — a framework for evaluating minority communities beyond identity politics.