‘We have nothing in common’: Rethinking community and the mechanisms of creating a sense of belonging

Abstract

We live in an era of crisis for community and commonality. Our present experience, as noted by Derrida, is that of an aporia at the heart of belonging. Yet, it is in the very space torn apart by this aporia that we can try to conceive of a new sense of community and transform our way of thinking about being in common, which means the deconstruction of “Us” and of its enunciation. In the light of such a deconstruction, what makes for effective and powerful change in a struggle for emancipation, or in a protest for the recognition of one or more rights, when carried out by a collective movement or a group? This paper aims to answer that question, by seeking to investigate the conceptual and theoretical mechanisms that make a plural subject’s protest or claim concrete in its quest for justice and equality, in the face of a growing and likewise concrete (or real) inequality.