Recognition-Seeking Irony

This chapter introduces recognition-seeking irony that as an ironic form differs markedly from justice-seeking irony and recognition-seeking irony, which were analysed in the previous chapters. This is because recognition-seeking irony is not self-critical, as are the other two, but critical of the other. Furthermore, recognition-seeking irony is typically articulated from an underdog position and fuelled by the humiliation of having been treated unjustly by the powerful. Recognition-seeking irony makes unequal and hidden power hierarchies visible by voicing experiences that are not part of the liberal vocabulary of the post–Cold War era. The chapter shows that, in recognition-seeking irony, it is not the authors but the audience who ruptures the illusion created by the final vocabulary that sustains the liberal order. The logics of imitation and stigmatisation inform the political and social milieu in which recognition-seeking happen.