In Boxed In, philosophers Derrick Darby and Eduardo J. Martinez diagnose the profound challenge that inflexible identities pose for democracy and offer a novel prescription that involves taking up civic responsibilities to search for, make visible, and attend to group differences in background, perspective, and empowerment. Using a wide range of examples from fútbol fans to Jay-Z's beef with Oprah, to literal box-checking on the U. S. Census, Darby and Martinez illustrate how scripting identities too tightly can box us in and they tell us what we can do to mitigate it. Weaving philosophical analysis with empirical research on identities, coalitions, and social movements, Boxed In prescribes making identities safe for democracy by undertaking responsibilities that help us break free from tight scripts that box us in and work together while taking our differences seriously.
