Minority influence and the struggle for recognition: Towards an articulation between social influence research and theory of recognition

Abstract

In a broader social context where the social divisions have increasingly come to be seen through cultural or ethnic lenses, one runs the risk of defining social categories in essential terms, emphasizing issues of cultural incompatibility, and reducing social influence phenomena to ingroup allegiances. Mugny and his colleagues argued that minority influence and social identifications processes interacted in such a way as producing conditions allowing outgroups to exert a genuine influence (Mugny & Pérez, 1986). Adopting an interactionist approach to the study of racism and xenophobia (Sanchez-Mazas, 2004), which in turn builds on Axel Honneth's (1996) philosophical theory of recognition, it will be argued that assuming the very possibility of outgoup influence emphasizes the role of the “voice”, in particular of minorities, as chance to enter into processes of reciprocal influence between majorities and outgroup minorities. While historically denied minorities put forward claims in the name of past or present victimization, this paper discusses the societal conditions for the minority groups' voice to preserve its distinctiveness while becoming a bulwark against the ethnic and cultural divisions that undermine contemporary societies' democratic purpose.