Overview

Community has conventionally been understood as a unifying property (identity, ethnicity, territory) that establishes relations of belonging and non-belonging. However, that understanding necessarily causes exclusion and disenfranchisement, contradicting the idea of being together community implies. Through an original dialogue between four major thinkers (Jean-luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, Chantal Mouffe and Bonnie Honig), Kevin Inston presents an alternative account of community which affirms its irreducibility to property and resistance to appropriation so that it remains available to diverse identities, practices and opinions. Improper communities promote a shared world in which everyone counts equally. Rethinking the Politics of Belonging examines the strategies for refusing enclosure of the common, the rules and principles that could prevent identarian politics, and the ethos and public things that could affirm community as sharing rather than property. Exploring examples including Black Lives Matters, proto-feminist movements and recent housing and ecological occupations, it demonstrates how improper communities could reinvigorate democracy by enacting and defending universal freedom and equality.

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9781399558952

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Reviews

Bringing four leading theorists into dialogue with each other, Kevin Inston’s powerful, highly engaging study shows how their ideas of ‘improper community’ shed compelling light on key contemporary struggles for racial, environmental, and social justice. Written with exemplary clarity and inspiring conviction throughout, this is a major contribution. -- Martin Crowley, University of Cambridge

Author Information

Kevin Inston is Associate Professor in French Studies at University College London

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