Nathifa Greene

Type

Text

Type

Dissertation

Advisor

Kittay, Eva | Cormier, Harvey | Casey, Edward | Craig, Megan | Feder, Ellen.

Date

2015-12-01

Keywords

Philosophy | body schema, Frantz Fanon, habit, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, stereotypes

Department

Department of Philosophy.

Language

en_US

Source

This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/11401/76616

Publisher

The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.

Format

application/pdf

Abstract

In fields that are concerned with unjust forms of power among social groups, such as feminism and the critical philosophy of race, habit has become an increasingly important theme. It is a concept that points to the reasons that oppression can be maintained through activities that seem ordinary, or that are falsely presumed to be good and right. Contemporary discussions of habit have focused on privilege, ignorance, and traits that express unjustly dominant forms of power. At the same time, a separate account of habitual action or skillful knowhow is still needed, apart from the explanations that have shown how habitual action is a destructive feature of dominant power, because habitual modes of action can also play a distinctly positive role in the formation of social resistance and resilience, one that can enable those who face oppression to withstand its harmful effects. I draw on insights offered by Frantz Fanon and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, along with resources from feminist phenomenology, pragmatism, and neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, to show how habitual modes of action can serve the aims of resistance and positive social transformation by enabling the development of critical consciousness, resilience, and valuable forms of resistance against structural injustices. I develop an interpretation of habitual action that has not yet been adequately explored in social theory, showing that claims on habitual action must depend on the relative power of the subject position that one inhabits. I treat habit as an important element of practices that can foster resilience and activities that can enable persons and groups to resist and to transform the harmful effects of structural injustice. I explore the value of habit in the context of activities that can sustain resilience and resistance, illuminating positive potential in an area of social theory in which habit has only been explored in terms of destructive cases to date. In this way, I show that habit is a necessary component of practices that can sustain alternative forms of normality and enact positive social transformation. Such positive forms can emerge and be sustained because of habit, not in spite of it. | 149 pages

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