Between experience and structure: Social suffering, collective identities and justice in Iris Marion Young

This paper analyzes the role of phenomenology in Iris Marion Young´s model of critical theory through a discussion of the different strategies she mobilizes in articulating the notions of identity and social collectivities in Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990) and Inclusion and Democracy (2000). By reconstructing the debate Young had with Nancy Fraser during the 1990s, we seek to demonstrate that, although Fraser mischaracterizes Justice and Politics of Difference as representative of the “cultural turn” in social theory, her criticisms can illuminate some of the tensions and shortcomings of the text. Moreover, we argue that the emphasis in a structural-analytical strategy of argumentation, characteristic of Young´s later work, can be traced back to the contentions formulated by Fraser. Nonetheless, it is sustained in a final step that Young never completely abdicated the phenomenological approach as a tool for social criticism. Although the argument of Inclusion and Democracy is developed primarily in a structural way, Young repeatedly mobilizes the experiences of social suffering and the demands for justice voiced by social movements as the basis of her large scale democratic proposals.