CRITICAL THEORYindeterminate and social differences as differences
of equivalency (Flax 1990). This perspective re-
sults in analyses that focus on identity to the
exclusion of systemic forms of domination. Thus,
for example, while feminists who adhere to critical
theory tend to analyze gender as a system of
patriarchal domination, poststructuralist feminists,
by contrast, tend to focus on the cultural produc-
tion of gendered subjects, that is, on representa-
tion and identity. Habermas ([1980] 1997) and
others argue that the avoidance of analyses of
systems in favor of more fragmentary micro-analyses
of discrete institutions, discourses, or practices is
an antimodern movement that obscures the
emancipatory potential of modernity (Best and
Kellner 1991).
Although this debate is still stirring, some
scholars are moving away from oppositional posi-
tions in favor of more complex readings of both
traditions in order to synthesize or forge alliances
between approaches (Best and Kellner 1991;
Kellner 1995; Fraser 1997). Thus poststructuralism
may serve as a corrective to the totalizing tenden-
cies in critical theory while the latter prevents the
neglect of social systems and calls attention to the
relationship between multiple systems of domina-
tion and social subjectivities. In other words, criti-
cal theory points to the need to understand sys-
temic forms of domination while poststructuralism
warns against the reduction of social subjectivity to
macro-overarching systems of domination. Thus
drawing on both traditions, Nancy Fraser (1997, p.
219) suggests that a more accurate picture of social
complexity ‘‘might conceive subjectivity as endowed
with critical capacities and as culturally construct-
ed’’ while viewing ‘‘critique as simultaneously situ-
ated and amenable to self-reflection.’’
Theoretical and empirical applications of such
a ‘‘both/and approach’’ abound. For instance, in
recognizing that all knowledge is partial, black
feminist theorists such as Patricia Hill Collins (1990)
articulate both critical theoretical tenets and
poststructuralist sensibilities by conceptualizing
identity as socially constructed, historically specif-
ic, and culturally located while stressing systemic
forms of domination without reducing identities
to single systems of oppression (also see Agger
1998). Postcolonial theories likewise draw on both
traditions in order to understand the fluid rela-
tionships among culture, systems of domination,
social subjectivity, the process of ‘‘othering,’’ and
identity formation (see Williams and Chrisman
1993). Douglas Kellner’s (1997) empirical work on
media culture likewise employs a multiperspectival
approach that combines insights from cultural
studies and poststructuralism with critical theory
in order to understand mass media as a source of
both domination and resistance, and as a way to
account for the formation and communicative
positionality of social subjects constituted through
multiple systems of race, class, and gender.
Habermas’s (1996) current theorizing on proce-
dural democracy reflects a move toward the
poststructuralism of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal
Mouffe’s (1985) theory of radical democracy that
stresses the potential collaboration of diverse agents
in progressive social movements that aim at de-
fending and expanding citizen participation in
public life.(SEE ALSO: Marxist Sociology)REFERENCES
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