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Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory
“A wonderfully rich and insightful collection of well-integrated essays on important current thinkers and social movements.” -Martin Jay University of California, Berkeley Unruly Practices brings together a series of widely discussed essays in feminism and social theory. Read together, they constitute a sustained critical encounter with leading European and American approaches to social theory. In addition, Nancy Fraser develops a new and original socialist-feminist critical theory that overcomes many of the limitations of current alternatives. First, in a series of critical essays, she deploys philosophical and literary techniques to sort the wheat from the chaff in the work of Michel Foucault, the French deconstructionists, Richard Rorty, and Jurgen Habermas. Then, in a group of constructive essays, she incorporates their respective strengths in a new critical theory of late-capitalist political culture. Fraser breaks new ground methodologically by integrating the previously divergent insights of poststructuralism, critical social theory, feminist theory, and pragmatism. Thematically, she deals with varied forms of dominance and subordination in modern, industrial, late-capitalist societies - especially gender dominance and subordination; state-bureaucratic forms of organization; the institutional politics of knowledge and expertise; and the structure and function of social-welfare programs. In the last section of the book, these themes are integrated in an original theory of “the politics of need interpretation.” This concept becomes the linchpin of he socialist-feminist critical theory proposed in the last chapter.
201 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1989
10 people are currently reading
290 people want to read
About the author
Nancy Fraser
138 books432 followersNancy Fraser is an American critical theorist, currently the Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Political and Social Science and professor of philosophy at The New School in New York City. Fraser earned her PhD in philosophy from the CUNY Graduate Center and taught in the philosophy department at Northwestern University for many years before moving to the New School.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 9, 2020
I was reading an article that cited a quote from Nancy Fraser and I was intrigued. After that, I decided to look for her book, then I wanted to start reading her first book. Here I am.
As a non-native speaker of English, I would say that this book is pretty "heavy". If you're not from socio-political background, then there are numerous terms that you might want to learn first before really diving into this book. The term like post-modernism, egalitarianism, poststructuralism, pragmatism, Neoconservatives, and so on.
I might not be able to recall all nor the majority of the content of this book. But there is some fascinating view in the Chapter 7 with the title of Women, Welfare, and the Politics of Need Interpretation. In this essay, she observed that women are subjects of and subject to the social-welfare system in their traditional capacity as unpaid caregivers. It is well known that the sexual division of labor assigns women primary responsibility for the care of those who cannot care for themselves (She leave aside women's traditional obligations to provide personal services to adult males - husbands, fathers, grown sons, lovers - who can very well care for themselves.) Such responsibility includes child care, of course, but also care for sick and/or elderly relatives, often parents. For example, a British study conducted in 1975 and cited by Hillary Land found that three times as many elderly people live with married daughters as with married sons and that those without a close female relative were more likely to be institutionalized, irrespective of degree of infirmity. Thus, as unpaid caregivers, women are more directly affected than men by the level and character of government social services for children, the sick and the elderly.
Thus this analysis observed how women's role in social welfare system and somehow this expected division of labor is unfair from feminist perspective.
As a non-native speaker of English, I would say that this book is pretty "heavy". If you're not from socio-political background, then there are numerous terms that you might want to learn first before really diving into this book. The term like post-modernism, egalitarianism, poststructuralism, pragmatism, Neoconservatives, and so on.
I might not be able to recall all nor the majority of the content of this book. But there is some fascinating view in the Chapter 7 with the title of Women, Welfare, and the Politics of Need Interpretation. In this essay, she observed that women are subjects of and subject to the social-welfare system in their traditional capacity as unpaid caregivers. It is well known that the sexual division of labor assigns women primary responsibility for the care of those who cannot care for themselves (She leave aside women's traditional obligations to provide personal services to adult males - husbands, fathers, grown sons, lovers - who can very well care for themselves.) Such responsibility includes child care, of course, but also care for sick and/or elderly relatives, often parents. For example, a British study conducted in 1975 and cited by Hillary Land found that three times as many elderly people live with married daughters as with married sons and that those without a close female relative were more likely to be institutionalized, irrespective of degree of infirmity. Thus, as unpaid caregivers, women are more directly affected than men by the level and character of government social services for children, the sick and the elderly.
Thus this analysis observed how women's role in social welfare system and somehow this expected division of labor is unfair from feminist perspective.
January 13, 2013
This book reminded me how much I like socialist feminism, despite all its faults. I really should read more of it.
July 28, 2025
Love this book so much!
In this book, Fraser examines some major figures in social theory (Foucault, the Derrideans, Rorty, Habermas) and make explicit the kinds of politics they imply.
I especially enjoy the three chapters on Foucault. It made explicit the strange tension in his thought. On the one hand, he seemingly rejects all previous humanist forms of ethics, while not proposing one of his own; on the other hand, his rhetoric of “surveillance” and “docile bodies” is one that is charged and points to an ethics.
Fraser went through Foucault’s writing and found that despite Foucault’s stated suspicion of traditional ethics, he constantly taps into ethical categories, including the humanist one that he is so critical of. She conclude that while Foucault provides us with some important empirical insights about forms of domination in late capitalist societies, he is “normatively confused”.
In the last two chapters, Fraser uses the resources from the theorist she has critiqued and rescued to formulate her own critical theory.
There, she discussed the welfare state as an apparatus to produce, normalize and stigmatize womanhood. She calls for a politics of “need interpretation” in which what needs one has, what it means, and how it might be addressed is not dominated by the normalizing and asymmetric psychiatric and sociological discourse of the state, but is rather arrived at through democratic dialogue and decision making.
The Derrida chapter was really confusing and I didn’t like reading it.
In this book, Fraser examines some major figures in social theory (Foucault, the Derrideans, Rorty, Habermas) and make explicit the kinds of politics they imply.
I especially enjoy the three chapters on Foucault. It made explicit the strange tension in his thought. On the one hand, he seemingly rejects all previous humanist forms of ethics, while not proposing one of his own; on the other hand, his rhetoric of “surveillance” and “docile bodies” is one that is charged and points to an ethics.
Fraser went through Foucault’s writing and found that despite Foucault’s stated suspicion of traditional ethics, he constantly taps into ethical categories, including the humanist one that he is so critical of. She conclude that while Foucault provides us with some important empirical insights about forms of domination in late capitalist societies, he is “normatively confused”.
In the last two chapters, Fraser uses the resources from the theorist she has critiqued and rescued to formulate her own critical theory.
There, she discussed the welfare state as an apparatus to produce, normalize and stigmatize womanhood. She calls for a politics of “need interpretation” in which what needs one has, what it means, and how it might be addressed is not dominated by the normalizing and asymmetric psychiatric and sociological discourse of the state, but is rather arrived at through democratic dialogue and decision making.
The Derrida chapter was really confusing and I didn’t like reading it.
June 9, 2019
Nancy Fraser tackles a wide variety of questions in her "Unruly Practices": from different poststructuralist thinkers to normative political and economic practices. Her socialist feminism is intriguing; although I would not dismiss postmodernism on basis of Foucault alone. However, she incorporates certain discursive thinking which takes power "at the margins" into account and delivers a precise & coherent book, with a clear socialist and feminist framework.
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February 18, 2025Felt like I learned how to think with this.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews