Identity,community,and justice: locating Amartya Sen's work on identity

Abstract

Amartya Sen's recent works on identity have emerged at the same time as a much wider and growing literature on the topic across the disciplines of politics, philosophy, and economics. This article outlines some of Sen's claims and attempts a partial elucidation of their relationship to some strands in the relevant literatures on identity, community, and justice. It thereby frames Sen's works in such a way as to facilitate comparisons with other views on identity and multiculturalism, community, justice, and recognition which feature in this volume and the relevant literatures. Framing Sen's work in this way also helps to clarify Sen's position in relation to those of Bhikhu Parekh and certain communitarian thinkers.