ABSTRACT
This chapter argues against the identification of a politics of difference with a politics of identity. Group differentiation is best understood as a function of structural relations rather than constituted from some common attributes or dis. It argues, contrary to the critics, helps us think of difference as a necessary resource for a discussion-based politics in which participants aim to cooperate, reach understanding, and do justice. Aiming to do justice through democratic public processes, the chapter, entails at least two things. First, democratic discussion and decision making must include all social perspectives. Second, participants in the discussion must develop a more comprehensive and objective account of the social relations, consequences of action, and relative advantage and disadvantage, than each begins with from their partial social perspective. Some critics of group-differentiated politics write as though racial, ethnic, class, or gender conflict would not exist if it were not for the corresponding movements. Such attitudes reverse the causal story.
