Justice Can Never Arrive: The Opening of the Call to Social Justice in Qualitative Inquiry

Most qualitative social justice research is guided by a critical theory–based understanding of justice, which conceives of justice as something that can be achieved, made present. For Derrida, however, justice can never arrive, be present; it is in fact impossible. Justice always exceeds our specific expectations of the future. Derrida’s second definition of deconstruction, which deals with the unstable relationship between justice and law, is examined, followed by a discussion of the deconstructibility of the law and the undeconstructibility of justice. Derrida’s concept of justice is ontological, whereas critical theory’s concept of justice is epistemological. For Derrida, and continental philosophy in general, however, epistemology has its ultimate basis in ontology. An important implication of Derrida’s concept of justice for critically informed qualitative social justice research is that justice cannot function as a guiding principle or ideal. Thus, the call to justice is an infinite one that researchers can never satisfy.