States of Freedom.

Wendy Brown's I States of Injury i broke new ground by interrogating the strategies of emancipatory political struggles at the end of the twentieth century, in a moment marked by the loss of comforting promises of historical progress, fixed referents of truth, and familiar visions of the good and the just that anchored past political projects. Yet I want to suggest that the turn to the state by politicized identities reflects more than a desire to hold on to pain and reproach power, and this can be seen by placing it in dialogue with right-wing critiques of state domination occurring at the same time Brown was writing. From this angle, the turn to the state could reflect more than a desire to punish or to be recognized, more than a credulous embrace of state protection, and instead press for something we could even call freedom. [Extracted from the article]