The concept of recognition

The theory of recognition by Axel Honneth (1996; Fraser and Honneth, 2003) is useful to shed light on processes and practices that foster or hamper inclusive social relations at the micro and macro levels. According to Honneth, recognition specifically refers to the signs that individuals give of the value they place on others, and it is associated with the concept of reciprocity. From Honneth’s perspective, the self is relational: individuals are viewed not as predefined subjects that enter relationships but as able to develop their identity, self-consciousness and autonomy within and thanks to intersubjective relations of mutual recognition.

Honneth links a general thesis on identity formation to his analysis of how concrete forms of recognition have varied throughout history. In modern Western societies, he discerns a process of differentiation of three spheres of recognition. In the sphere of love or close relationships of positive regard, individuals recognize each other as unique and worthy subjects, with concrete physical and emotional needs; thanks to this kind of reciprocal recognition, they develop self-confidence. In the legal sphere, individuals consider each other as human beings with rights equal to others, a necessary condition for the formation of self-respect. In the sphere of solidarity, people learn to understand themselves as subjects possessing capabilities and talents that are valuable for society, developing their self-esteem. In contrast, experiences of misrecognition – in the forms of maltreatment, disrespect and denigration – are a source of harm for people and may hamper the formation of fully realized subjectivities. Nevertheless, even if the lack of recognition may be detrimental to people’s well-being, it can also lead to the development of resistance strategies in the forms of struggles for recognition (Honneth, 1996) at both individual and collective levels. Honneth highlights how experiences of misrecognition are associated with strong feelings of shame or anger; when these occur systematically, and if there is some kind of social movement for articulating them, resistance can emerge.

Honneth, following Hegel, understands relations of recognition as essentially conflictual and dynamic. Conflicts lead to the differentiation of spheres of recognition; moreover, they engender extensions and new interpretations of principles of recognition (Bertram and Celikates, 2015). For the German philosopher, misrecognition is the root cause of social inequality (Fraser and Honneth, 2003), while recognition practices are the foundation of social justice and a precondition for redistribution.

Honneth’s work has been criticized by several scholars, offering divergent and sometimes complementary perspectives. Drawing from theories of both class and status, Fraser argues that redistribution and recognition go hand in hand but are distinct dimensions of social justice as participatory parity (Fraser and Honneth, 2003). For the North American philosopher, misrecognition is more a status injury than harm to the individual psyche or group identity. Misrecognition prevents group members from participating fully as partners in society; it may be expressly codified in formal law, government policies, administrative rules or professional practices, as well as embedded and informally institutionalized in the associational patterns and sedimented social practices of civil society (Fraser, 2000). From Fraser’s perspective, the remediation of individual suffering is not possible unless the structural variables causing it are addressed (Fraser and Honneth, 2003), enhancing the equality of status.

Other scholars have criticized Honneth, highlighting how recognition does not enable autonomy and freedom but rather increases conformism by normalizing and disciplining human beings (Jaeggi and Celikates, 2017). In this perspective, processes of misrecognition are seen as embedded in recognition practices, in which individuals are constrained by various cultural and social structures, for example, the family, the state and the market. Recognition is only possible in relation to the established norms of recognition that practically force individuals into the corresponding social roles (for example, the role of ‘mother’ or ‘service user’ and so on) or treat them as deviant, excluding them on such grounds. The realization of freedom through reciprocal recognition is seen as an ideology that contributes to obscuring the functioning of the dominant order of recognition. This negative interpretation of recognition has been criticized as a conceptualization that primarily focuses on structures, obscuring individual agency and the possibilities emerging from social practices that can foster non-reifying, non-instrumentalizing attitudes and social relations.

Theories about recognition have oriented a vast theoretical and empirical literature aimed at understanding which kinds of recognition people are struggling for and how potential parties recognize each other or are denied recognition as legitimate actors in claiming it. In the next section, we are going to discuss in particular the work of scholars that applied this lens in the field of social work.

Recognition in the social work field

Honneth has not specifically analysed the issue of recognition in professional helping relationships. Nevertheless, his theory has inspired theoretical reflections and empirical research, showing how practitioners and services are part of the processes that can convey either recognition or misrecognition.

In the social work field, mirroring the wider debate, different authors have assumed conflicting positions on the theory of recognition. Reflections focused on Honneth’s earlier work stress the risk of the ‘psychologization’ of human problems and a reductionist focus on micro-level encounters (Garrett, 2010; Webb, 2010). For example, echoing Fraser’s critiques, both Garrett and Webb highlight recognition theory’s conceptual limitations in dealing with questions of the redistribution of wealth.

Other authors are more positive about the helpfulness of Honneth’s theory for the social work profession and discipline. Through an empirical analysis, Juul (2009) aims to demonstrate how recognition can be used as a normative ideal to critically reflect on social work judgement. Laitinen and Pirhonen (2019) identify in the theory of recognition a powerful heuristic instrument to analyse what promotes interpersonal recognition in long-term residential care settings. Other authors stress the relevance of the theory not only to detect practices aimed at building empathic love and caring relationships but also to overcome narrow individual-oriented approaches by fostering the recognition of rights and countering the effect of oppressive social and organizational practices (Houston and Montgomery, 2017).

An empirical study by Sebrechts et al (2019) assumes a more critical perspective on Honneth’s concept of recognition, highlighting ambiguities and contradictions that originate from its empirical use. Their findings from a study on services for the inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities highlight the necessity to overcome a representation of ‘pure’ and ‘perfect’ forms of recognition that cannot actually be traced in concrete situations in everyday life, especially in contexts marked by social inequality. These scholars conclude that misrecognition is unfolded in recognition, meaning that an instance of recognition coincides with, and likely depends on, some form of misrecognition.

Theoretical reflection and a few empirical works focus explicitly on poverty and recognition in welfare settings. Isola et al (2019), in a study involving people living in poverty, apply Fraser’s concept of recognition to analyse narrations related to experiences of misrecognition and recognition in their everyday lives, highlighting how the Finnish welfare state, which rests on standardized universalism and a social security system based on predefined risks, fails to grant recognition to poor people in an increasingly polarized society. Timor-Shlevin (2021: 1) – recalling Fraser’s distinction between redistribution and recognition – highlights how the focus on ‘recognition in social work practice hinders the conceptualization of providing material support as a valuable practice’. A complementary conclusion is instead reached by Tonkens and Verplanke (2013), who, in a study involving single mothers on welfare, aimed to demonstrate how without relational security conveyed by practices of recognition in the everyday interactions between mothers and social workers, the material security that the welfare state offers cannot be enjoyed.

Gupta et al (2018), adopting Lister’s framework of ‘the politics of recognition and respect’ and drawing from findings of a study involving social workers, parents in poverty and academics, shed light on the importance of social work participatory practice at the micro and macro levels. These scholars also call for further studies on how poverty and parenting interrelate and on how macro-level structural inequalities influence the lived experiences of families and social workers, broadening the focus from a relational to a political level. This article adds to this strand of literature, exploring which forms of recognition and misrecognition are experienced and reproduced in encounters between parents in poverty and social workers and, more particularly, which factors can foster the possibility of building mutual recognition between the actors involved in the helping relationship.

Theme 1: Negative recognition

These professionals stressed the importance of their task to ‘raise the awareness’ of parents about their flaws, as well as through the help of experts from the education or the psychology fields. This approach seemed to be built on the opposition between ‘them’ (parents in poverty) and ‘us’ (the expert), leading to cultural clashes related to different worldviews or negative representations, obscuring the impact of a wider oppressive context.

From the parents’ interviews emerged several negative prejudices about social workers as well, mainly in relation to widespread representations, which influenced their perceptions before allowing the possibility of concrete interactions. Some parents explained that they see these professionals as distant bureaucrats and treat them as such; when forced to ask for help because of economic precariousness, their assumption was to receive material aid, excluding a priori processes of common sense-making. Negative socially constructed representations of both parents and professionals hamper the possibility of building collaborative relationships, leading to reciprocal mistrust and self-defence; parents try to stay as far as possible from social services, while social workers admit that they have to exercise control for the children’s sake, without the possibility to co-construct opportunities for change.

Theme 2: Invisibilization

Some social workers’ reflections help to understand such processes. Interviewees described organizational and professional practices that expose them to the risk of neglecting parents’ needs. Unsustainable workloads, the lack of time to work with the community, managers’ concern being more focused on bureaucratic tasks and service provision, and top-down organizations that do not allow creativity and informal practices limit their possibility to invest time in relational work, which is often taken for granted, or invisibilized: Differently from the other municipality where I worked, here … the job is more a technical one. Sometimes, I have the sensation to be considered as an administrative worker, limiting my assessment to eligibility criteria to access resources. (Social worker)The consequence of such practices was the perception of both actors of being involved in a relationship dominated by standardized rules and bureaucratic priorities, which risks invisibilizing both the persons and the relationship between them.

Theme 3: Conditional recognition

The so-called ‘expert trap’ is a possible factor leading to forms of conditional recognition when professionals assume that parents trust their knowledge and experience to identify what is best for them and their children. Similarly, the professionals recognized as the ‘good social worker’ are those meeting parents’ expectations. For some of the interviewed parents, this means a professional who is always there when needed, while others refer to a professional executing tasks to provide material help, without asking questions about their lives.

The relationship seemed to work when both the parties involved obtained what they were expecting: parents accepted the plan defined by the professionals and got the requested subsidies, and the social workers allowed access to material aids while obtaining information needed for planning the ‘right’ intervention. However, there seemed to be no interaction between categories and worldviews.

Social workers also referred to forms of conditional recognition in their experience with parents when they felt treated ‘as a bank machine’ more than helping professionals. Parents’ strategies to obtain the help they needed was to comply in order to receive what they asked for, without allowing a relationship based on exchange and trust; this could have happened in relation to representations of professionals as service providers or to negative assumptions about ‘asking’. This is confirmed by some parents: ‘I went to see them [social services] because of my economical issues; then, I do what they require, but I do not want any involvement with them’ (mother).

In all these scenarios, when role expectations were not met, the actors interacting in the relationship used different strategies to handle the feeling of being misrecognized in relation to different positions of power. Some parents submitted to professionals’ decisions, fearful of negative consequences for their children; others reacted by trying to reaffirm their perspective. When possible, in relation to the level of precarity, some parents interrupted contact with the agency. In relationships that were perceived as instrumental, social workers generally felt frustrated, worried about the consequences of a rapport not able to produce change. Some tried to reaffirm their power by imposing conditions; others instrumentally accepted the parents’ requests to ‘at least’ gain the possibility of ensuring opportunities ‘for the children’. Some practitioners tried to allow more time, hoping to be able to create the possibility for trust, while others decided to close the case.

Theme 4: Reciprocal recognition

The helping relationship can be meaningful and fulfilling in itself; for some parents, the worker was the first person to see them as trapped by intersecting forms of recognition denial. Professionals who allowed ‘talking as normal’ and were ‘there’ to understand their concerns, without invading their space, were able to build trust even in the most difficult conditions, in which the experience of several forms of injustice was leading parents to lose trust in everybody.

When acts of mutual recognition were created, parents and social workers seemed to be able to share a project based on processes of common sense-making. The partners reciprocally shared thoughts and concerns in a relationship in which everyone was recognized as autonomous and competent.

Once built, trust and mutual recognition need constant maintenance. Cognitive and emotional perspective taking is challenging and time-consuming, exposes people to reciprocal vulnerability and sometimes implies conflicts. Recognition is built based on practices in which the spirit of both partners is about learning without exploiting, providing care without substituting and dominating, and giving up on egocentric interests. However, this spirit is constantly undermined in conditions of social injustice, when socially constructed forms of vulnerability lead to constant challenges and struggles, endangering the possibility of trusting and counting on others, and sometimes even compromising the strength required to fight for recognition.

In the interviews, we found several examples in which social workers were allies in struggles for recognition at an individual level, advocating to defend parents as bearers of rights. From the parents’ voices, we identified the need to also move towards a collective level, but our data did not provide any concrete examples of shared struggles or projects to foster collective actions to claim recognition.