Early social-justice activism preceded sophisticated political theory
Evidence
I want to hold to the notion, implicit in both these examples, that movements provoke theoretical moments. And historical conjunctures insist on theories: they are real moments in the evolution of theory. But here I have to stop and retrace my steps. Because I think you could hear, once again, in what I’m saying a kind of invocation of a simple-minded anti-theoretical populism, which does not respect and acknowledge the crucial importance, at each point in the moves I’m trying to renarrativize, of what I would call the necessary delay or detour through theory. I want to talk about that “necessary detour” for a moment. What decentered and dislocated the settled path of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies certainly, and British Cultural Studies to some extent in general, is what is sometimes called “the linguistic turn”: the discovery of discursivity, of textuality. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 251 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Theorists, who have attempted to expand the understanding of justice beyond the distributive realm, have all been influenced by the way social movements later in the twentieth century moved beyond a sole focus on material and distributional concerns. In many ways, the discussions of theorists, such as Fraser, Honneth, Taylor, and Young on recognition and Sen and Nussbaum on capabilities, were spawned as reflections on a variety of social movements—civil rights, women’s, multicultural, gay and lesbian, sustainable development, anti-neoliberal, and many more. In other words, it has been, in part, the expansion of the understanding of justice in movements that has had a real impact on the understanding of the term in theory. With this in mind, I turned to movements for environmental justice to examine how movements themselves articulate these concepts and issues. — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 174 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Justice theory expanded because real movements first broadened justice’s meaning — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice:…, 174; Recognition justice theory was built from real-world movements, not abstract reasoning — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice:…, 165; Social movements generate theory rather than merely applying it (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Social movements and historical conjunctures generate theoretical moments rather than merely consuming them
#corroborates(0.93) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 251 - Justice theory expanded because real movements first broadened justice’s meaning
#expands(0.92) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 174 - Social movements generate theory rather than merely applying it
#corroborates(0.90) - Recognition justice theory was built from real-world movements, not abstract reasoning
#corroborates(0.88) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 165 - The environmental justice movement’s founding principles integrated justice dimensions from its earliest moments.
#exemplifies(0.78) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 265