Hypatia, Inc.

Home and Identity: In Memory of Iris Marion Young

Author(s): Allison Weir
Source: Hypatia, Vol. 23, No. 3, In Honor of Iris Marion Young: Theorist and Practitioner of
Justice (Jul. - Sep., 2008), pp. 4-21
Published by: Wiley on behalf of Hypatia, Inc.
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Home and Identity:

InMemory of IrisMarion Young
ALLISON WEIR

Drawing on IrisMarion Youngs essay, "House and Home: FeministVariations on

a Theme," Weir argues for an alternative ideal of home that involves: (I) the risk
of connection, and of sustaining relationship throughconflict; (2) relational identi
ties,constitutedthroughboth relationsofpower and relationsofmutuality, love,and
flourishing;(3) relationalautonomy: freedomas thecapacity tobe inrelationshipsone
desires, and freedomas expansion of self in relationship;and (4) connection topast
and future, throughreinterpretive
preservationand transformativeidentification.

I think how I justwant to feel at home, where people

know

instead

me;

. . . that home

I remember

was

place

of forced subservience, and I know thatmy wish is that of

an adult

to stay a child;
wanting
but to know nothing,

to be known
to feel no

by others,

responsibility.

The place that Imissed sometimes seemed like a memory

of childhood, but itwas not a childish place. Itwas a place
of mutuality,
easiness

companionship,

in the body,

curiosity

sensuousness,
creativity,
. . .
. . .
love.
safety and
hope
?Minnie

In this paper,

I want

to revisit

some

feminist

reflections

on home,

Bruce
and

Pratt

parties

larly on home as a metaphor for identity. In the late 1980s and early 1990s,
several feminist theorists, drawing on Minnie Bruce Pratt's "Identity: Skin
Hypatia

vol. 23, no. 3 (July-September

2008) ?

by Allison Weir

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Allison Weir 5

Blood Heart" (1988) used themetaphor of home to identify the problematic

and illusorynature of an ideal of individual identity as bounded, unified, safe
and

an

and

secure,

of a feminist

ideal

women.

of women-identified

munity

were

homes

on

in fact founded

and

of a cohesive

that these

recognized

repressions

out

emerging

politics
It was

on defenses

exclusions,

com
secure

safe and

on

and

the policing of borders.This recognitionmarked a decisive break from thewhite

middle-class feministpolitics ofVirginia Woolf's 1928 classic A Room ofOnes
Own. As Bernice JohnsonReagon put it,once you let all the strangers in, "the

room don't feel like a room no more. And itain't home no more" (1983, 346).
And as Teresa de Lauretis argued, the home was never really home in the first
women

place;

never

have

at home.

been

De

Lauretis

us

urged

to embrace

and

affirmour displacement fromhome, as "eccentric subjects" (1990).

In her

Marion
with

1997

been

have

and

Feminist

and Home:

that while

argues

Young
home

"House

essay,

are

the
in many

ways

on

Variations

of home

ideal

and

a Theme,"

women's
to women,

oppressive

Iris

association
are

there

aspects ofthe ideal of home thatwe ought to reclaim. Young argues that "while
politics should not succumb to a longing for comfort and unity, thematerial
can

of home

values

nevertheless

for radical

leverage

provide

social

critique"

(157).1 Thus, Young is arguing that the ideal of home ought to be affirmed
as a

locus

identity,

of goods?normative
and

that

should

values?that

support

to everyone.

be accessible

and

personal

They

stand,

collective

Young

argues,

as "regulative ideals bywhich societies should be criticized" (161). These values

are: (1) safety, (2) individuation, (3) privacy, and (4) preservation.

feminist theorists Young is addressing?Biddy Martin and Chandra

Mohanty (1986), Teresa de Lauretis (1990), and Bonnie Honig (1994)?have
all argued that just these values should be criticized, or rejected: the ideal of
safety should be replaced with an openness to risk and danger, the ideal of
individuation with an acceptance of a nonunified self, the ideal of privacy
The

with

a critique

orientation
while

ofthe

toward

the critiques

public-private
the future
are

of home

and

split,
toward

important,

and

the

change.

ideal of preservation
I shall
defenses

Young's

with

first of all,

argue,
remind

an
that

us that home

and identityare, inher words, "critical values" that should indeed be accessible
to all. But I shall also argue thatwe need tomove beyond both critiques and
defenses

of home

be understood

to criticize

as a

locus

the dichotomies

of values

that

themselves:

transcend

that home

dichotomies.

These

can

also

values

are: (1) the riskof connection, and of sustaining relationship through conflict;
(2) relational identities, constituted through both relations of power, and rela
tions ofmutuality, love, and flourishing; (3) relational autonomy: freedom as
the capacity

to be

preservation

and

in relationships

one

self in relationship; (4) connection

transformative

desires,

and

freedom

as expansion

of

to past and future through reinterpretive

identification.

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6 Hypatia

Safety

is a classic feminist analysis of identity through

"Identity: Skin Blood Heart"

the metaphor

narrative

Pratt's

of home.

is an

account

of her

own

movement

through a series of identities, and her deconstruction of those identities. At

each stage, she analyzes the construction of her own identity through rela
tions of power and exclusion, through racism, sexism, homophobia, and class
hierarchies, and she uncovers layersupon layersof lies, fear,oppression, denial,

struggle, and resistance within each of her comfortable homes. For Pratt, the

very desire

for comfort,

for home,

to realize

that her

safety and

safety, and

protection

is suspect.

protection,

have

been

She

at a price:

bought

comes

as a white

southern Christian female, she has been protected fromblack men and Jews,
kept pure forchildbearing; thehome she grew up inwas stolen from indigenous
peoples and built through the labor of slaves. And she learns that her safety is
conditional. When she falls in love with a woman, she steps outside the circle
of protection that kept her safe as a white heterosexual wife and mother. Her
children are taken away fromher. The ideal of home as a place of safetyand
protection has been exposed as a lie, a romantic illusion whose seductive pull
she must
home.

resist. This

finds a new

a home

she finds

When

time she
is repeated
each
as a woman-identified

story

woman,

new
identity, a
to
she has
learn,

slowly and painfully, how that home too is built on the exclusion of women
herself:

unlike

non-Christian,

nonwhite,

not middle

class.

Pratt

learns

to live

a life that is less comfortable and less safe but more truthfuland less lonely: "I
will tryto be at the edge between my fear and outside, on the edge atmy skin,
listening, asking what new thingwill I hear, will I see, will I letmyself feel,

beyond the fear" (1988, 18).

In their thoughtful analysis of Pratt's text, Biddy Martin and Chandra
Mohanty write that Pratt's descriptions of each of the places she's lived, and
each

of her

identities

in those

are constructed

places,

on a tension

two

between

modalities: home and not home. "'Being home' refers to the place where one
lives within
realizing

familiar,

that home

safe, protected
an illusion

was

'not being

boundaries;
of coherence

and

home'

safety based

is a matter
on

of

the exclu

sion of specifichistories of oppression and resistance, repression of differences

even within oneself (1986, 196).
IrisYoung argues thatwhile Martin and Mohanty are right to point out that
the boundaries of home typically serve to protect privilege, they are wrong to
reject the ideal of home altogether. For Young, "the proper response isnot to
reject

home,

but

to extend

its positive

position

ismore

tension

between

to act,

and

They

complex.
the search

the awareness

values

to everyone"

(159).

Young's

claim

reject the ideal of home isnot quite accurate; their

thatMartin and Mohanty

argue

for a secure

of the price

for an acceptance
place
at which

of the "irreconcilable
to speak, within
are bought"
places

from which

which

secure

(1986,

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Allison Weir 7

206). They argue against a purely deconstructive approach, which would negate
any identification with one's own historically specific identities, and make a
case

for a situated

instead

historical

"succeeds

they note,

Pratt,

subjectivity.

in carefully taking apart the bases of her own privilege by resituating herself
and

again

in the

again

from which

positions

to reanchor

social...

she speaks,

even

herself

repeatedly
to expose
the

as she works

in each

of the

illusory

coher

ence of those positions" (194). In other words, the position taken byMartin
and Mohanty isnot that we need to reject the ideal of home altogether, but
thatwe need to live on the tension between home and not home, identityand

nonidentity, safetyand risk,oscillating back and forthbetween the two.They

do, however, reduce the ideal of home to the maintenance of exclusion and
oppression. They argue that the safetyof home can only be bought at the price
of exclusion and oppression of others. Thus, even though at the beginning of
they stress the
to the Right"

their essay
community

over

of "not handing
they offer no positive

importance
(191),

notions

content

of home

and

to an alternative

ideal of home. Throughout the essay, they equate home with oppression and
exclusion. Thus, while they acknowledge the desire forhome, they argue that
thisdesire must be repeatedly undercut by the recognition that the yearned-for
a protection

is illusory,

safety
The

importance

of home

not

should

bought

of Young's
be

to a mechanism

reduced

the

of exclusion

is her

then,

argument,

ries a core positive meaning"

acknowledging

at the price

of others.
that

recognition

of oppression,

that

the

ideal
car

"home

that can and should be reclaimed (159). While

of Luce

importance

of woman's

critique

Irigaray's

role

as

idealized mother/home forman (1992), Young argues that this critique should

not

us

persuade

that

there

notes that bell hooks

but

she

a positive

gives

is thus no

ideal

of a safe home.

political

to these

meaning

functions

of "home."

"Appealing to the historic experience of African American women,

is the site of resistance
'homeplace'
structures. The
ability to resist dominant

to

that

argues
social

the full reach

beyond

of those

Young

agrees that "home" is associated with safety,

(1990)
and

to the

value

structures,

dominating
structures
social

where

different,

more

[hooks]

and

exploiting
a space
requires
humane,

social

relations can be lived and imagined" (159). Young argues, then, that safetyis a

normative
they

can

value
go

that should

to be

safe.

be accessible

Ideally,

home

to all.

a
needs
"Everyone
place
a safe
one can
where
place,

means

where
retreat

from the dangers and hassles of collective life" (161).

Surely, Young has a point here. In a world where millions of people are
homeless,

and millions

from home

has

understood

more

are
or
refugees
not been chosen,

emphatically
only as a mechanism

of oppression

immigrants

whose

the argument
and

exclusion

displacement
can be

that "home"
can

sound

vaguely

obscene. A safehome is something that, in a justworld, would be accessible to

everyone,

bell

hooks

shows

how

crucial

the

safety of home

can

protection fromand resistance to oppression. Cheshire Calhoun

be

as a site of

(2000) argues

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8 Hypatia

that the displacementof lesbians and gays from the safetyand protection of the
private sphere is central to lesbian and gay subordination; thus full access to
that safetyand protection is essential to ending lesbian and gay subordination.
And Young's own argument ispartlymotivated by her own story,embedded in
this essay, of being taken fromher home and placed in foster care as a child.
Against the background of these forcible displacements fromhome, the argu
ment that we ought to reject the safetyof home and embrace risk and danger
as a rejection

not

appears

as an

but

of privilege.

expression

we

Perhaps

could

say, then, that the privileged need to question their cozy homes, while the
to have

need

oppressed

access

to them.

to the argument

In response

that

of domestic

the prevalence

violence

belies

the illusion of home as a safeplace, Young responds, citingAnita Allen

our

that, given

awareness

are all

that homes

too often

(1988),

the sites of violence

and

abuse, the ideal of a safe home serves as a regulative ideal that enables social
criticism. It is important, then, to hold onto the possibility, the ideal, of a
of violence

place

on

is not based

home?that

safety?a

and

abuse,

and

exclusion

to maintain

and

that

is not

that

oppression,

for a mini

is essential

this

mally decent life in a minimally justworld. This requires thatwe move beyond
cynicism with respect to the possibility of safety:beyond the conviction that
reality is inevitably characterized by oppression and exclusion, and that safety
is just a nostalgic
dream.
as a safe place.

is right,

Young

then,

to affirm

of safety, and

the value

of home

Yet we need also to move beyond the dichotomy of home/not home, of

an alternative:
to imagine
I want
safety and risk,
as a site of the risk of connection,
of sustaining
Thus,

rather

home

and

than

oscillating

predicated

are

that homes

the recognition
on oppression

and

exclusion,

in fact
can

we

of home

ideal

conflict.
through
relationship
for a safe, secure, conflict-free

the desire

between

for an

to argue

sites of violence

and

affirm

and

recognize

abuse,
an

ideal

of home as a space ofmutuality and conflict, of love and its risks and struggles,
our

homes?including

to others.

connections

conflictual

and

of caring

identity

be

politics?might

our
In particular,
political
we
seen as
where
places

engage in the risk of connection with each other, in the conflictual, messy,

and

self-critique,

other

that mediates

of home

work

in arguments,

in dialogue,
and

intimate

and

dangerous,

as

the

to change,

space

we

to our

shared

risk connection

who

us to address
threaten

our

that

the violence
comfort

and

other?engagement

might

is a response

safety, and

to critique
with

each

to an

Shifting
us set clear
help

struggles.

on conflict and risk, so that these do not develop

enable

each

to vulnerability,
a commitment
to solidarity
in openness

with

our commitment
where

with

of engagement

in struggles,

ideal
limits

into violence. This might

to terror and

the violence

that

anger

is an

at those

assertion

of

right to dominate the other within thewalls of home. Ifwe are not looking for
perfect

safety,

for absolute

privacy,

for a return

to the womb,

for the mother

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Allison Weir 9

can

we

is the angel of the house,

perhaps
as the price of that dream.
oppression

who

learn not
we

Perhaps

to accept

can

violence
and

imagine

and
a

embrace

differentdream of a better home.

Thus, rather than rejecting identity politics as a false home, and turning
to

of disconnected

coalitions

strategic

we

individuals,

embrace

might

possibility of identity politics (and coalition politics?) as homes?as

the connections

and

conflicts

to solidarity.

essential

Bernice

Surely,

the

sites of
is

Reagon

right to point out thatwhen we do feminist politics we should not be looking

for safety. Coalition

are necessarily

politics

risky and

and when

dangerous,

we

are doing thiswork we can feel ourselves "threatened to the core" (1983, 343).

where

the

separate
we

that we

this means

For Reagon,
must

are

ifwe

two. But

to recognize

able

should

not

are able
and

confuse

confront

with

coalition

to shift to an

of home

ideal

as a space

relations?which

power

we

home:

surely

ifwe are able to sustain relationship through

these confrontations, and through the feelings of risk and danger they entail,

exist in the safestof homes?and

then we might
the danger

the

question

of politics;

between

stark opposition
as a
home

between

the

of happy

place

safety of home
and

unity

and

politics

as

a site of hostile collisions. We might imagine overlapping spheres of homes

that are places

where

we

risk connection.

This

does

not mean

that everywhere

should be home. But shifting to this alternative ideal of home might help us
risk connection in our political lives, and itmight help us be more realistic
about

our

beyond

into

strangers

towardReagon's
you can

of home.

expectations

to welcome

also
And

help

those

this might

who
help

are
privileged
us move
closer

ideal of an "old-age perspective" (1983, 348). "The only way

take yourself

seriously

little meager

your

It might

their homes.

is if you can

throw

human-body-mouth-talking

yourself

into the next

all the time-You

period
must

believe that believing inhuman beings in balance with the environment and
the universe isa good thing" (352-53). With thesewords, Reagon holds out for
us the dream
to embrace

of a better
connection.

by recognizing

that our

we can create
ourselves
only by expanding
we
can
to
the
closer
this
dream
way
get
Surely,
only
ideal of home must
include
conflict
and struggle.

home,

which

is

Individuation

This alternative ideal of home can help us rethinkYoung's second normative

value: Young argues that the ideal of home ought to be affirmed as a support
for individuation.
Where Martin and Mohanty argue for a situated subjectivity
constituted through oscillation between identity and nonidentity, home and
not home, because, for them, "stable notions of self and
identity are based
on exclusion and secured by terror" (1986, 197), Young proposes an ideal of

home

as a space

of ownership

of material

supports

for bodily

needs

and material

belongings that reflectone back to oneself, providing a coherence and stability

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10Hypatia

to the self (162). Young isnot endorsing the individuation of the independent
atomistic individual. She argues for something closer to the kind of process
subjectivity thatMartin and Mohanty affirm: an "individual subjectivity of
the person, where the subject is understood as fluid, partial, shifting,"but she

adds that this subjectivity exists "in relations of reciprocal supportwith others"
(Young 1997a, 141).
Young and Martin and Mohanty are all arguing for a recognition that our
identities are relational,but theydifferas towhat thismeans. For Young, itmeans
that we

are connected

to a

we

where

place

to

and

belong,

and

people

belong

ings that connect us to our selves. ForMartin and Mohanty, Pratt's identity is
relational primarily because it is constituted through relations of power.2Thus
to particular

connections

Pratt's
mined"

and

"undercut"

and

places

the discovery

by

are

people

that

they have

"under

continually
"obscured

particular

race, class and gender struggles" (1986, 196). Martin and Mohanty rightly
point out that the strengthof Pratt's narrative, and of the subjectivity that she
creates

rests on her

for herself,

and

recognition

acceptance

of the relationships

of power and privilege inwhich she is embedded. Pratt is able to assume these
relationships

in a transformative

consciously,

"rewriting

in relation

of herself

to shifting interpersonal and political contexts" (1986, 210).3

What Martin and Mohanty fail to emphasize is the fact that Pratt's narra
tive

Her

is motivated

resistant

other
her
very

through
explicit

positive
to other

by powerful
to her lover,

connections

self-critique
about

even

and

groups,

writes

this. She

her
that

that

are not undermined.

to the feminist

to her parents

sustain

and

connections
women,

transformations:
the process

her

of coming

to

movement,
are what

and her history,

propel

identity. Pratt
to consciousness

is

about the exclusions and oppressions that underlie each identityhas lefther
close tononidentity: "As I tryto stripaway the layersof deceit that Ihave been
taught, it ishard not to be afraid that these are likewrappings of a shroud and
thatwhat Iwill ultimately come to inmyself is a disintegrating, rottingnothing"
(1988, 39). For Pratt, this fear of nonidentity can also be a temptation: ifwe
are members
behind,

of dominant

disassociate

cultures,

ourselves

from

want

"we may
simply
.
it. . . We
may

end

our

to leave
up wanting

culture

not

to be

ourselves" (40).
Against this fear and temptation of nonidentity, Pratt not only consciously
assumes

the relations

of power

and

privilege

that constitute

her but also

engages

in a "positive process" of re-creatingherself, of "creating a positive self (41-42).

Pratt does thisnot just by undermining, but by drawing on and reclaiming her
relationships

and

her

past,

by strengthening

"a sense

of connection

to history,

people, and place" (44), and, importantly,by reaching out to people who are
strange

to her. Her

primary motivation

for engaging

in this process

is love:

"How

do we want to be different fromwhat we have been?" she asks. And answers:

"I began

when

I jumped

from my

edge

. . . into

radical

change,

for love:

simply

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Allison Weir 11

love: formyself and forother women" (19). Pratt's process began with her love
foranother woman. ForMartin and Mohanty, Pratt's lesbian identityand love
a

serves

women

for other

in the text only

function

unifying

insofar

as

it is "that

which makes 'home' impossible, which makes her self nonidentical" (1986,
202). But they are wrong. This love, forPratt, iswhat motivates her to create
a positive identity in connection with others. And what sustains her is the
to

the need,

and

desire,

her

"expand

circle

to "loosen

of self,"

the constrictions

of fear,"and to "escape the loneliness of separation" (1988, 19).

she comes

While

to realize

of a home?an

dream

that her

identity?that

she could sharewith all women was based on ignorance and denial of relations
of power and privilege among women, Pratt does not give up on her desire to
a new

create

new

home?a

connections

identity?through

with

She

others.

does, fora while, withdraw from feministpolitics into a sortof seclusion, and a
sense

other

she

But

of hopelessness.

ing with

with

women,

out

reaches

to find new

again,

of other

members

of connect

ways

to continue

groups,

oppressed

a process of self-creation through expanding her circle of self. She does this
by actively engaging with people very unlike herself, by learningmore about
the relations of power that connect her to them, and by learning about their
of resistance.4

histories

Martin and Mohanty's oscillation between identityand nonidentity, home

and not home,

a similar

does mirror

text: while

in Pratt's

oscillation

Pratt writes

that her engagement in a process of change began "when I jumped frommy

. . . into radical

edge

that she sustains her

for love" (10) she also writes
on
to
the
desire for a safe and
the
stay
edge, resisting
by trying

of change

process

change,

comfortable identity: "I will tryto be at the edge between my fear and outside"
(18). Thus she does oscillate between affirmingnonidentity?staying on the
risking

edge,

to future,

openness

and

questioning

her

resisting

identity?and

moving from her edge into identification with others, with herself, with a
to a specific

commitment
as she moves

between

fact undermine
of her
that
is an

identity when

her

in relations

embeddedness
she had
identity

consciously

of change.
two poles.
But

process

these

in a simple,
resting
assumes

she opens
of power.

too-comfortable

uneasily
those

on

power

There

is ambivalence

it seems

to me

herself

to question,

She

undermines,
she comes

identity:

top of repression
relations,

and

that

and

denial.

in the text,
she does

in

rightly, any faith

to see that this
But

she

because

engages

practically

not

to recognition

with

them,

she integrates them into her identity.She becomes aware that they have
fact always been a part of her (objective) identity?the truthof herself?and

able

to integrate

and

thus

Thus,

her

them

into her

into a transformed
openness

through

a process

through

reflection

becomes
of positive
on them.

subjective

identity
not

an

that

identity?her
integrates

undermining

self-creation:

through

is

self-understanding?
subjective

but

in

and

an expansion

practical

objective.
of her

connections

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self,
and

12Hypatia

Pratt's relational identity,then, isconstituted by both relations of power and

relations ofmutuality, flourishing,and love. She becomes conscious of relations
of power only through risking the dangers of love. And she sustains her self
through the uncovering of her power relations, and through the risk of non
identity,
to argue,

forging and
for a conception

through
then,

connections.
Iwant
and embracing
as relational
it is constituted
because

remembering
of identity

through both relations of power and relations ofmutuality and love. They are
but neither

intertwined,

out

cancels

the other.

can

Neither

be

to the

reduced

other.Nor do they exist only in radical opposition, or oscillation. While

does

oscillate

between

affirming

connections

positive

and

Pratt

relations

uncovering

of power, she is able to transformher identityonly by integrating the two: by

engaging with and connecting with others, opening her self to connection with
others, she isable to learn about the relations of power that both connect her to
and divide her fromothers, and this knowledge leads to stronger,more aware,
and

connections.

deeper
But

power.

She

create

she does

does

not

a stronger,

resolve

thereby

more

deeper,

or eradicate

differences

more

connected,

open

and

feminist

crit

knowledgeable identity.And this kind of identity finds a home in the space

where the riskof connection isunderstood to be worth the struggle.
Privacy
The

third value

that Young
out

ics who

point

restrict

their access

that

is the value

espouses

the private

sphere

has

oi privacy. Against
served

to confine

only

between

realm, Young
argues
women
are confined,
and "privacy,"
the "private
which
sphere" within
or not allow
a person
to allow
has
and control
refers to "the autonomy
to her

information

person,

about

her,

and

the

that

things

are

to

women,

for a distinction

to the public

which
access

meaningfully

associated with her person" (162).5

But women's

confinement

of autonomy

condition

are

to the private
in fact

intimately

sphere
related.

and

the

Pratt

ideal
uses

as a

of privacy

the

image

of the

woman entombed in the household inEdgar Allen Poe's "The Fall of theHouse
ofUsher" to show that the protection of thewhite woman in the Southern U.S.
Christian household has served (and still serves) to protect the autonomy and
control the privacy ofwhites over theBlacks and Jewswho are perceived as threat
ening. The woman entombed in the household symbolizes the purity thatwhite
men are able to protect and keep inside,while projecting all sources of danger, of
filthand defilement, onto the others?the Blacks and Jewswho are kept outside.
"I am entrapped

as a woman,

not

just by the sexual

fear of the men

of my

group,

but also by their racial and religious terrors,"Pratt writes (1988, 38).
As

Young

withdrawing

notes,

Bonnie

from politics

criticizes
the ideal of "home"
Honig
certain
into a place
of more
principle

as "a means
and

of

integrity"

(Young 1997a, 158).

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Allison Weir 13

The

it animates

because

settings,
constituted

particularly

in postcolonial

exacerbates

the

is dangerous,

of home

dream

and

nations?to

subjects?or

of
inability
their own
internal

accept

divisions, and itengenders zealotry, thewill to bring the dream

of unitariness of home into being. It leads the subject to project
its internal

onto

differences

Others

external

and

to rage

then

against them forstanding in theway of itsdream?both at home

and elsewhere. (Honig quoted inYoung 1997a, 158-59)

vast

writes,
Young
one
is and can

argues,

Honig
is confident

who

structure

institutional
for some

reflection
transfer

of benefits"

processes

of politics

of certainty

and

at

realm

lose out

who

others

retreat

against

Like

control.

on

and

in the global
in the messy

for engagement

then,

and

and

autonomy

one

where

place

of

integrity depends
a luxury of withdrawal,
safety

such

argues,

Honig

in the public

as a

of home

a sense

of many

the expense

integrity,

on

fall back

that allows

(157).

sense

"the

that

into private

Bernice

spaces

Reagon,

Honig

argues that feminist politics requires an engagement in risk and conflict with
rather

others,

than

protects

certainty,

she argues

Nevertheless,
on

predicated
Young

and

the

along

which

of

the private

emphasizes

and

they

of Honig

are not
and

that

of borders

of wholeness
from

so.

necessarily
that

the

and

political.
can be

it affords

the autonomy

others

In earlier

work,

is a "closed

autonomy

the right to keep

exclusion,

primarily

a fantasy
personal

and

privacy

terror,

lines

as

of home

critiques

that while

exclusion

argued

concept,

these

as protection

and

to a policing

rooms,"

them.
with

agrees

Young

to "barred

retreating

us against

out

others

and

to prevent them from interferingin decisions and actions" (Young 1990, 251).
In this earlier

work,

Young

privacy,

in the sense

making.

"Empowerment

between

distinguishes

that modern

corporations

which

autonomy,

are private,

and

to

refers

empowerment,

which she defines as an agent's participation in social and political decision

privacy"

(251).

freedom

from

At

is an open

the

same

interference

and

a concept

of publicity
rather than
a conception
as
of autonomy
own
one's
actions
and decisions

concept,

time,

she defends
over

control

(250). In "House and Home," Young cites Anita Allen (1988) to argue that
while it is true that privacy law has been used to protect the power of male
heads

over women

of households
as

for all persons

and

invaded,

individuals

a source

provides

and

exposes

children,
the extent

of critique

and

the appeal
to which
support

to privacy
women's
of privacy

as a value
privacy

is

for women

(Young 1997a, 163). Certainly, the right to bodily integrityand to decisional

privacy

with

respect

for women.

weight
or control
person

over

to have

to intimate
Moreover,

a space
"control

relations

are privacy

rights

that carry

special

involves

argues,
autonomy
Young
ownership
own and
a
of one's
of one's
own,
belongings
allowing
over access
to her living space, her
meaningful
things,

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14Hypatia

and informationabout herself (163). Young stresses the importance ofmaterial

for one's

supports

In "House

identity.

and Home,"

that home

argues

Young

"enacts

mode

specific

of

subjectivity and historicity" through the "materialization of [one's] identity,"

in two ways: "(1) my belongings are arranged in space as an extension ofmy
bodily habits and as support formy routines, and (2) many ofthe things in the
as well

home,

as the space

itself, carry

sedimented

as retainers

meaning

personal

of personal narrative" (149-50). The meanings embedded in the belongings in

one's

home

Thus,

one

reflect

autonomy

to oneself,

back

over

or control

one's

and

allow

one

space

personal

to sustain
is essential

one's

identity.

for creation

and

of one's identity.Similarly, in "A Room ofOne's Own: Old Age,

Extended Care, and Privacy" (2005) Young stresses that privacy entails not just
decisional privacy,butmaterial personal space of one's own. Noting that residents

maintenance

ofhomes forthe elderlyoftenhave no private space fortheirpersonal belongings,

or for themselves, Young argues thatwithout material personal space of their
own, protected from social interventions, the elderly are denied the privacy of
bodily integrityand thematerial support ofmeaningful belongings that provide
the comfort

and

tion, expression,
for a valuation
sense

of agency

support
and
a

and

habits

and

formemory,

the capacities

that are essential

intimacy

of home
and

for personal

to identity. Thus
it affords as "the material

the privacy

shifting

and

fluid identity. This

concept

reflec
argues

Young

for a

anchor

of home

does

not

oppose the personal and the political, but instead describes conditions thatmake
the political possible" (159). It isnot immediately clear, however, how Young's
of autonomy

conception

based

on privacy

escapes

this opposition

the

between

personal and the political, the private and the public.

Liberal

conceptions

of autonomy

and

privacy

are

rooted

in the Lockean

model of the individual and individual freedom, based in the ownership of

private

property.

With

the advent

of modern

capitalism,

of private

ownership

property became the foundation of autonomy understood in termsof rights in

competition with others. Against thismodel of autonomy predicated on pri
vate ownership of the household and the self in opposition to and competition
with others, JenniferNedelsky and other feminist theorists have argued for a
model of relationalautonomy.6 In some of her essays, Young draws on this body
ofwork to distinguish between personal autonomy and self-sufficiency(1997b,
124-27; 2002, 45-47). In these essays, she defines personal autonomy (which
she differentiates frommoral autonomy) as "being able to determine one's own
projects
those

and
goals

one will
goals, how
to others,
and without

live one's
having

life, without
to obey

having

the orders

to answer
of others

for

about

inmodern liberal capitalist societies

how one will live" (2002, 45). While
the ideal of autonomy is tied to the ideal of self-sufficiency,or private owner
ship

of property,

Young

argues

for a conception

related to "supportive interdependence"

of autonomy

(46). Certain

that

is instead

forms of dependence

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Allison Weir 15

and

on negative

based

"as normal

be understood

conditions

(47). But her conception of autonomy is still liberal,

freedom

"is conceptually

should

she argues,

interdependence,

of being autonomous"

hence

and

Personal

privacy.

to liberty; where

close

liberty

is about

she writes,

autonomy,

non-interference"

simple

(45). She adds that "personal autonomy carries the additional meanings of being
able to decide one's own goals and theirmeans to fulfillment,and meeting
with respect fromothers in one's right to govern one's life" (45).71 agree with
Young that a capacity forautonomy, which includes privacy frompolitical and

social intervention (negative freedom), needs to be affirmedas a condition of

political participation, even while we recognize the importance of critiques of
withdrawal intoprivilege and certainty.But we must also go beyond the defense
of privacy, to reconsider what kind of autonomy we want, and what kind of
home

serve

would

and

defenses

as

its condition.

of privacy,

for relational

means

This

to a reconsideration

going

of home

both
critiques
beyond
as a
for freedom:
ground

autonomy.
on

Drawing

the Hegelian-Marxist

tradition,

on

feminist

theories

of relational

identity,and particularly on the "love and justice tradition of Black America"

invoked by Patricia Hill Collins, Cynthia Willett offers a vision of freedom
is situated

that

in relationship
in "home,"
and rooted
but as a source of connection
with

ership

of property

is not

the

not

understood
others

and

as own

nurturing

of spirit. In the love and justice tradition of Black America, Willett finds an
"alternative modernism" according towhich the focus of freedom and of rights
self-interested

what

means

freedom

but

individual,

others" (2001, 174).8 Quoting

than

the

"individual-in-relationship-with

"Who better to know

John Edgar Wideman:

the

slave?" Willett

draws

on

the

narratives

slave

of Frederick Douglass for this alternative vision (Wideman quoted inWillett

2001, 157). For Douglass, "freedom does not reside primarily in individual or
forms of ownership

collective
tions

forged

between

persons"

. . . Freedom

or control.

190).

(Willett

Douglass

lives or dies

in the rela

offers a reconceptualiza

tion of freedom through themetaphor of home (194).g Against

Euroamerican
is predicated
out

that

in which

tradition
on

leaving

"the practice

home,

the development

on

of separating

separation
children

of freedom

from the mother,

themodern

and

autonomy

Douglass

points
is a marked

from their mothers...

feature of the cruelty and barbarity of the slave system" (Douglass quoted in
Willett 2001, 197). For Douglass, freedomwas located in the childhood home
he shared with his grandmother, a source of a social and ethical force that he
calls "spirit" (Douglass quoted inWillett 2001, 190). And his eventual release
from slavery was

not

a sufficient

condition

for freedom.

Freedom

could

be found

again only when he was able to find a new home, inmeaningful and supportive
relations
To

with

develop

others.
this alternative

vision

of freedom,

Willett

draws

on

the work

of Patricia Hill Collins, who quotes the words of ex-slaves Sethe and Paul D

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16Hypatia

inToni Morrison's Beloved. For Sethe and Paul D, freedom is "a place where
you could love anything you chose" (Morrison 1987, 162; Collins 1990, 182;
Willett 2001, 179). This understanding of freedom goes beyond situatingfree
dom in the context of relationships (the project of most theorists of relational
autonomy) to argue that freedom isprecisely thecapacity tobe inrelationshipsthat
one desires: to lovewhom and what you choose to love.10In Beloved, Sethe expresses
her newfound capacity for freedom to love as an expansion of her self: "I was
. . . and
deep and wide and when I stretched out my arms all my children
big
could get in between. Iwas thatwide"(Morrison 1987, 162). Freedom, then, is
a withdrawal

to be not

understood

into self-ownership,

but an expansion

of self

in relationship. Thus, freedom entails not leaving home, but expanding oneself
to finda home "beyond your littlemeager human-body-mouth-talking all the
time" (Reagon 1983, 352). Thus, themost fundamental and crippling formof
is alienation

alienation

from

love,

from erotic

power,

and

from

the capacity

to

hear and to feel one's own desires (Willett 2001, 176-78).

Perhaps this way of understanding freedom?freedom to love, to be in
relationships one desires, and to expand oneself through relationship?can
as a source of
help draw out the implications of IrisYoung's defense of home
and

privacy

When

autonomy.

argues

Young

that everyone

needs

a space

of her

own, belongings of her own, and control over that space and those belong
ings,

not

is arguing

she

but

ownership,

only

that everyone
this

that underlying

right

and
has a right to noninterference
is the need
and the right to engage

in a relationship with herself that ismediated by her relationship with her

belongings?with belongings that reflecther back to herself. The understand
ingof the self in relation to herself,mediated by objects, takes us back toHegel
and toMarx's 1844 "Alienated Labour." We can add thatwhat isneeded is the
freedom to love and care forherself, to love those objects that are meaningful

to her, that contribute to her life story.And that this love, rooted in relations
firstexperienced in the home, is the source of her love for and connection to
home: connections to people, values,
other subjects and objects beyond this first

work,
enable

and
her

social

causes,

to create

new

and

resistance

to oppression.

And

these

connections

homes.

Preservation

This brings us to the last value Young identifies:forYoung, home is ideally a site
of preservationof individual and collective history and meaning.11 Young notes
that Simone de Beauvoir (1952) relegates the preservative activity of care for
to women's
of passivity
and
situation
and for children,
for belongings
transcendent
to
of
as
work
the meaning-making
active,
immanence,
opposed
with futurity, Young
associates
Beauvoir
actors.12 Because
historical
historicity
home,

argues,

she

is unable

to recognize

the work

of preservation,

of preserving

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the

Allison Weir 17

livingmeanings of past history, as meaning-making work. Similarly, Hannah

Arendt distinguishes between the repetitive, cyclical activity of labor and the
meaning-making activity of work. And Martin Heidegger, while recognizing
that building requires both constructing and preserving, "drops the thread of
and

preservation
these

Against
passive,

on

concentrates

work

past-oriented

moment

the creative

of meaning-making,

oppositions

of constructing"

future-oriented

of preservation,

the

and

"the

particular

that

argues

Young

(152).

activity

human meanings enacted in the historicality of human existence depend as

much on the projection of a past as of a future" (152). The work of preservation
entails the continual renewal ofmeaning that allows individual and collective
identities to be sustained and developed.
Like Beauvoir (and Arendt and Heidegger), Biddy Martin and Chandra
Mohanty, Teresa de Lauretis, and Bonnie Honig have tended to valorize life
"on

the edge,"

to the risk and

open

to the

in opposition

of the future,

danger

preservation of home. In Pratt, too, the lifeof riskand refusalof home isoften
reminiscent

to transcendence

of the will

of the existential

hero.

De

Lauretis

expresses this ideal inher argument that feministsmust make a shift inhistorical
consciousness
giving

that

up a place

"a displacement
is safe, that is 'home'...

and

entails

that

valorized

connection

to community

leaving

or

is unknown

that

place

1997a, 158). "Life on the edge" is

and risky" (De Lauretis 1990, 138; Young

over

self-displacement:

for another

over

and home,

love and desire:

"Can

maintain my principles against my need for the love and presence of others like
me?" Pratt asks (1988, 50). But we need to question this opposition between
principles and the need for love, to ask whether being true to one's principles
necessarily

requires

suppressing

needs,

and

connection,

rejecting

home.

leaving

And while Martin and Mohanty may be right to note that by itself the desire
forhome and community renders feminists indistinguishable frommembers of
the Ku Klux Klan (1986, 209), we need to question the implication that the
critique of this desire iswhat would distinguish us.
Against
the activity

these

too-simple

of preservation

Preservation
nostalgia.

entails
Where

oppositions,
and

for a distinction

fantasy

of a lost home.

which

remembrance,
nostalgia

argues

Young

the nostalgic

can

be

is quite

constructed

different
as

between

from

longing

flight from the ambiguities and disappointments of everyday

life, remembrance faces the open negativity of the future by
knitting a steady confidence inwho one is from the pains and
joys of the past retained in the things among which one dwells.
Nostalgic

longing

is always

for an

elsewhere.

is

Remembrance

the affirmationof what brought us here. (154)

Young
terpretive:

stresses

that preservation

"the narratives

can be conservative,

of the history

of what

brought

but

it can

us here

also

be

are not

rein
fixed,

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18Hypatia

and

the creative

of

part

connection

is to reconstruct
of preservation
in light of new events,
relationships,

and moral

task

to the present

of the past

the
and

political understandings" (154). This activity of "reinterpretive preservation"

to Pratt's

is similar

of herself."

"rewriting

as

But,

I have

Martin

argued,

and

(and often Pratt herself) have understood thisprocess as a "conscious

Mohanty

of past

assumption"

so that

identities

can

these

an oscillation

be undermined:

between taking on and undercutting identities, and homes. This "conscious

sometimes

moreover,

assumption,"

a Christ-like

resembles

hand,

that

argument

Young's

the preservation

as

martyrdom,

the burdens of the past are taken on, but without redemption. On
of the past

the other
a

produces

"steady

confidence in who one is" through the "affirmation" of our histories is not
entirely

either.

adequate

can

Pratt

and homophobia

sexism,

that have

the

"affirm"

hardly

her

constituted

racism,

anti-Semitism,
can Holocaust

identity. Nor

survivors and descendants of slaves "affirm"the entirety of theirhistories. But

these

must

histories

be

The

preserved.

can

is, how

question

of

preservation

such histories lead to something other than utter despair? The preservation of
those histories, through the telling and retelling, to ourselves and to others, in
that will

ways

us and

transform

transform

the only way

the future, becomes

we

can hold ourselves together.These retellings affirmboth our resistance and our
This

belonging.

of "reinterpretive

understanding

makes

preservation"

sense

of

Young's inclusion, in "House and Home," of the storyof her mother, which is
also

own

her

ment.

Young

her mother,

she has

that

to "describe

and

and PTA

housework

orderly

story of loss, abandonment,

story?a
writes

this

included

in concrete
motherhood

guilt, and forcible displace

of
the memory
story to preserve

terms how

of
standards
disciplinary
to oppress women,
especially

continue

singlemothers" (1997a, 135). In retelling the story,Young is engaging not in

surely she cannot

simple "affirmation"?for
or her own?but
in an act of re interpretive
her mother's
together,

but

memory
in a way

that

connects

also

simply

affirm her mother's

preservation
her

that not

to her mother,

only

and

holds

suffering
preserves
herself

is redemptive.

Iwould argue thatwe find in thiswork of reinterpretivepreservation amodel

(certainlynot the onlymodel!) forfeministpolitics, and solidarity.Through the
telling and retelling of our stories to ourselves and to each other, we combine
the conscious assumption of the oppressions and violence that have shaped us

with the affirmationof belonging, and the transformationofthe future. In doing

this, we

are not

simply

affirming

our

identities

nor

or our homes,

are we

rejecting

them to leap into the negativity of the future.Nor are we oscillating between

affirmation
process

and

transform

or resolving

negativity,

of transformative
ourselves,

identification:

and hold

ourselves

this opposition.
through
together,

We

reinterpretive
through

are

engaging

preservation

struggle,

in a
we

and without

denying any ofthe sufferingand tragedy this entails.13

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Allison Weir 19

Young's ideal of reinterpretive preservation, then, offers the possibility

of connecting past and future. Bernice Reagon expresses this possibility in
what she calls "an old age perspective" (1983, 348). And Frederick Douglass
expresses it as well, inhis vision of freedom as a home for the extended family
of humankind?a home inwhich the spiritwill thrive (Willett 2001, 202). As
Pratt writes, this dream of freedom, of home, is a childish place, but it is also
a childish

not

Iris Young

place.

reminds

us

to remember

that.

Notes

1. Unless

otherwise

noted,

to this model,

2. According

are to Young

citations

parenthetical
identities

are

relational

1997a.
they are defined

because

through relation to what they are not.

3. De Lauretis
refers to this rewriting of self as "transformative"

(1990,

136).

discusses
identification with others as resistant agents (2003, 84-85).
4- Lugones
5. In "A Room of One's Own," Young cites Anita Allen's
definition of privacy as a
is a condition
of restricted access: "Personal
of inaccessibility
of the
condition
privacy
his or her mental

person,

lance of others"
between

states, or information

(Allen

quoted
and autonomy.

privacy

in Young

2005,

about

the person

164). Young

to the sense of surveil

does not clearly distinguish

6. See Nedelsky 1989;Mackenzie and Stoljar 2000.

to conceptions
as positive freedom, in John
of autonomy
in
and
theories
of
(1859)
recognition.
Young also recognizes
as freedom from domination.
be understood

is alluding
7. Young
Stuart Mill's On Liberty
that liberty must
8. Willett
argues

that this alternative

theme of social
(2001,

here

of freedom "resonates
understanding
in ancient European, African,
and Asian
to an Ancient
that it corresponds
Greek

that lies buried

justice
In particular,
she argues
of social justice, where
injustice

162).

standing

is seen as the violation

of sacred

with

texts"
under

social bonds:

hubris (162-63).
9. Willett
10. Willett
of freedom

draws

this argument

is critical

from Andrews

of the concept

she offers can be understood

1987.

of autonomy;
as relational

I am arguing

that the conception

autonomy.

11. Young draws on the work of Sara Ruddick

(1989) and Joan Tronto
(1992), who
focus on preservative
love and care for persons. Young argues that this concept
should be
to the preservation
of meanings
extended
in the home.
through care for belongings
12. I criticize Beauvoir's
of agency with negativity
inWeir
1996 (14-25).
equation
13.

I discuss

and Transformative

23 (4).

"transformative

identification"

Identity Politics,

which

in more

is forthcoming

detail

in "Global

in the next

Feminism

issue of Hypatia

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

20Hypatia

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