Redistribution or recognition, 15 years later. Considering the debate between Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, as well as its echoes in Brazil

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss how Nancy Fraser’s and Axel Honneth’s intellectual projects evolved through different paths after their 2003 debate and additionally if, and how, this paths could be proven fruitful to Brazilian social theory. I begin by showing how the debate was sparkled by the attempt of both Fraser and Honneth to offer a picture of present-day capitalism through the analysis of social struggle, particularly, through an understanding of how (I). After that, however, both of them focused on a rather systemic understanding of capitalism, which resulted in different conceptions of social conflict (II). Since, however, their fruitfulness for the understanding of social conflicts was very distinctive of the debate’s reception in Brazil, the new path undergone by Fraser and Honneth also changes the way their models can be made useful here (III).