The Politics of Social Suffering: Introduction to the Special Section

Abstract

Social suffering has become in the past decades a key topic in various disciplines of the humanities, leading to a number of debates on its (still contested) status within social analysis and normative philosophy. Problems of this sort are especially relevant in view of the fact that experiences of suffering have become a central figure of political life in many parts of the globe. This introduction provides an overview of these discussions and presents the articles included in this special issue.

Keywords

• social suffering
• social pathology
• social struggles
• diagnosis of the present
• critical theory
• social philosophy