Playing with labels: Identity terms as tools for building agency

Philosophical Quarterly 74 (4):1103-1136 (2024)
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Abstract

Identity labels like “woman”, “Black,” “mother,” and “evangelical” are pervasive in both political and personal life, and in both formal and informal classification and communication. They are also widely thought to undermine agency by essentializing groups, flattening individual distinctiveness, and enforcing discrimination. While we take these worries to be well-founded, we argue that they result from a particular practice of using labels to rigidly label others. We identify an alternative practice of playful self-labelling, and argue that it can function as a tool for combating oppression by expressing and enhancing individual and collective agency.

Author Profiles

Elisabeth Camp
Rutgers - New Brunswick
Carolina Flores
University of California, Santa Cruz

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