recognition often focus on the emergence and constitution of the
recognizee, religious views put a distinct emphasis on the performa-
tive status and identity of the recognizer. Religious recognition is a
process of self-identification, desiring self-preservation. This may be
the most distinctive feature of religious recognition, especially in pre-
modern times.
Another important distinctive feature is the constitutive relation-
ality of personhood, a remarkable trend in all historical paradigms of
religious recognition. The person of the recognizer, as well as that of
the recognizee, is not a stable, autonomous substance, but is con-
stantly shaped and produced in the networks of social bonding and
the changes of mind. The feudal images of lord and servant, as well as
the medieval ideas of bridal mysticism, exemplify thisfluctuating
identity of relational personhood. In the intellectual history of reli-
gious recognition, the lack of equality is to some extent compensated
by the rich imagery of the relational self that becomes attached to the
relational other.
252 Recognition and Religion