Testing the limits of the politics of recognition: Fox hunters in the United Kingdom

Research into the rights of minority groups to preserve their culture and identity has tended to focus on claims for cultural recognition made by indigenous peoples or other socio-economically disadvantaged groups. By contrast, this article examines the political appeals to culture and identity made by campaigners in the United Kingdom seeking to defend the sport of hunting with hounds in the lead up to the creation of the Hunting Act (2004). Opponents of the hunting ban consciously echoed arguments about cultural survival and cultural diversity made by indigenous hunters with the goal of fighting animal welfare legislation. These cultural arguments had little persuasive force when deployed by this relatively powerful and affluent group. I argue that the moral force of appeals to culture derive not from a vital human need for cultural recognition but from the imperative of redressing longstanding patterns of social, economic and political disadvantage.