The unseen, the discouraged and the outcast: Expressivity and the foundations of social recognition

Abstract This article analyzes different pathologies of social affirmation and examines the grounds of social recognition from the point of view of the concept of expression. The red thread of the text is provided by Tove Jansson’s fictional works, and the focus will be on three cases in particular (the magic hat, the invisible girl and the figure of the Groke). The article sets out from the phenomenological distinction between the sensible expression, on the one hand, and the expressed content, on the other. By focusing on the three cases, the article distinguishes and analyses the fundamental structures of communal life and explicates different ways in which social affirmation can be one-sided or distorted.