The Emergence of the Political

DANIELA GRISELDA LÓPEZ

Angewandte Phänomenologie. Zum Spannungsverhältnis von Konstruktion und Konstitution

Springer

Lugar: Bielefeld; Año: 2012; p. 147 - 172

The aim of this work is to examine the notion of equality in Alfred Schutz´s work, paying special attention to the emergence of the problem of equality in everyday life. In order to formulate a theory of equality, we will base our analysis on Thomas Luckmann´s (1983) phenomenological considerations, emphasizing the constitutive and constructive dimensions of equality. In doing so, our reflections will move on two levels, the constitutive and the constructive analysis of intersubjectivity. Our main purpose will be the formulation of the notion of the political, which is implicit in the Schutzian position. It will be argued that the political, as an interruption of social and symbolical order, emerges through the experience of inequality in everyday life, in other words through the problem of equality. In the first part of our work we will develop Alfred Schutz´s position concerning equality and inequality in everyday life. We will maintain that the problem of equality in everyday life emerges through the experience of inequality. As a way to find out the emergence of that problem, we will try to find the origin and the way in which inequality is experienced in everyday life. In doing so, it will be argued that problems related to the subjective and objective implications of equality, arise with the concepts of imposed group membership and imposed systems of relevances specifically when the Other´s subjectivity is not recognized as such. The second part will argue that the notion of equality must be rooted in the constitutive features of intersubjectivity since, according to Schutz, intersubjectivity is the fundamental ontological category of human existence in the world. We will base our analysis in phenomenological and anthropological considerations. It will be affirmed that equality is not only an a priori at the constitutional level, but also a social construction at the level of everyday life. However, the field of tension between constitution and construction of intersubjectivity, shows itself in the emergence of the experience of inequality when the problem of equality appears or interrupts the order of domination. In our opinion this is the moment in which the political emerges. Finally, it will be argued that the notion of equality lies at the heart of the logic of the political. The political emerges when the social order of the domain of relevances is interrupted or altered by the problem of equality as a consequence of the experience of inequality in social interaction. The political is the interruption of the problem of equality and the consequent activities carried out with the objective of verifying the a priori of equality in everyday life.