Iris Marion Young and the concept of justice in the context of the politics of difference

The politics of difference has emerged as a reaction to the negligence of the rights or demands of social groups that have been excluded and ignored in the public political spheres because of their differences. In such an understanding, the importance of heterogeneous citizenship is more emphasized than the citizenship in a homogeneous union, based on the argument that the social groups categorized by gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or disability are excluded from the perception of equality as the sameness of the dominant and dominant culture. Therefore, the understanding of difference in terms of policy of difference implies a contingent and non-external process to differences. Iris Marion Young, one of the important names of the politics of difference and critical theory, based her analysis of social justice and injustice on the need to view a policy that considers the rights of social groups excluded due to their differences. Taking Young's theory as the basis, the study aims at investigating the possibility of a policy which affirms the differences, rather than ignore them; that can observes the rights of the social groups treated like second class citizens and minimize the structural injustices. The main argument of the study is that the tension between the universal and the specific can be overcome with an agonistic approach by defining the limitations of the concept of publicity adorned with universal values and thus, the claims and representations of the social groups suffering from structural injustices can be provided. In this respect, the universalized understanding of citizenship which is defined as equality as homogeneity, homogeneous publicity, the ideal of neutrality and justice are explained by distributive paradigms is critically handled. Furthermore, the discussion of the possibilities of heterogeneous public ideal based on specificity, relativity, and contextualism on the basis of difference comprehension has the qualities that can provide an opening for representations of different social groups.