Refugee recognition: reconsidering Honneth in light of Benjamin and Klein

Using data collected from participant observation through creative workshops in two regions of the UK in 2019 and 2020 with participants going through the asylum system, this paper seeks to redress the under-theorisation of Axel Honneth’s use of critical and psychoanalytic theory including the work of Donald Winnicott within Honneth’s book The Struggle for Recognition. Crucially, this approach sees Honneth’s primary intersubjective process of recognition, love, as ambivalent, as opposed to monolithically conceived, a common criticism of Honneth’s early work, and applies this conception to empirical data. Following the work of philosopher Amy Allen, this paper also resolves to apply Jessica Benjamin’s use of the Third to a number of empirical case studies relating to creative workshops conducted with participants going through the asylum system. By taking this ambivalent approach, this paper shows how meaningful recognition might more successfully be achieved beyond the limits of such the punitive regimes of asylum.