Making Space for Justice: Social Movements, Collective Imagination, and Political Hope

Michele Moody-Adams

Published by Columbia University Press 2022

Making Space for Justice

Social Movements, Collective Imagination, and Political Hope

Michele Moody-Adams

https://doi.org/10.7312/mood20136

Overview
Contents

About this book

Michele Moody-Adams explores what social movements have shown about the nature of justice and what it takes to create space for justice in the world. She argues that these insights are critical to bridging the gap between discerning theory and effective practice—and should be transformative for political thought as well as for political activism.

Author / Editor information

Michele Moody-Adams is Joseph Straus Professor of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory at Columbia University. She is the author of Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture, and Philosophy (1997). Moody-Adams is a lifetime honorary fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Reviews

Tommie Shelby, author of Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform:
Making Space for Justice is a remarkably illuminating work on the indispensability of social movement activity for understanding and achieving justice. With deep historical knowledge, careful argument, and real-world examples, Moody-Adams makes a compelling case for why political philosophers must go beyond defending abstract principles to learning from the 'engaged moral inquiry' of progressive social movements. This is a truly exceptional book from a leading thinker on the meaning of moral progress.

David Lyons, author of The Color Line: A Short Introduction:
We face systems of egregious injustice. Prevailing theories, which focus on abstract principles, provide little guidance for addressing injustice. Making Space for Justice finds practical and theoretical insight in progressive social movements. This groundbreaking book shows that they apply constructive imagination with 'humane regard,' joining 'compassionate concern' with 'robust respect.'

Elizabeth Anderson, author of Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It):
Making Space for Justice is a timely work given our current political dangers, in which partisans lack a shared reality and cynics promote a nihilistic politics of despair that threatens democracy. This work manifests on every page the virtues and normative orientations for which Moody-Adams is arguing—hope, civic grace, an inclusive imagination, compassionate concern, and respect for all, including even those who are, out of despair and resentment, currently endangering democracy. It is a powerful contribution to the pragmatist tradition in philosophy.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
INTRODUCTION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
I UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
1 WHAT IS A SOCIAL MOVEMENT? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
2 SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE TASK OF DEMOCRACY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
3 SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE MORAL LIFE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
II SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE POWER OF COLLECTIVE IMAGINATION
4 TAKING IMAGINATION SERIOUSLY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
5 LANGUAGE MATTERS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
6 JUSTICE AND THE NARRATIVE IMAGINATION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
III THE IMPORTANCE OF POLITICAL HOPE
7 THE EMPIRE OF AFFECT AND THE CHALLENGE OF COLLECTIVE HOPE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
8 HOPE AND HISTORY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	309
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	329

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;

eBook

Published: August 11, 2022
ISBN: 9780231554060