Justice Can Never Arrive: The Opening of the Call to Social Justice in Qualitative Inquiry

The Historical Role of Social Justice in Qualitative Inquiry

The term social justice is dynamic and, as a result, has been defined in a variety of ways. In its broadest sense, it refers to the achievement of equality and fairness. It can also be used in more specific ways that focus on human rights, human dignity, inclusion, diversity, self-determination, or privileges within society, for example. What all definitions of the term share, however, is the assumption that the world in its current form is capable of changing, that it can be improved by changing the life circumstances of marginalized or oppressed groups of people. Bell (2013), for example, provides the following comprehensive definition of social justice, one that views it as both a goal and a process:

We believe that social justice is both a process and a goal. The goal of social justice is full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs. Social justice includes a vision of society in which the distribution of resources is equitable and all members are psychologically and physically safe and secure. We envision a society in which individuals are both self-determining (able to develop their full capacities) and interdependent (capable of interacting democratically with others). Social justice involves social actors who have a sense of their own agency as well as a sense of social responsibility toward and with others, their society, and the broader world in which we live. (pp. 21–22)

As for social justice research, it has a long history in qualitative inquiry; even in its earliest forms, qualitative research had as one of its goals to bring about social change. For example, late 19th-century ethnography, such as the work of Booth (1891) and DuBois (1899), emphasized (what was then considered to be objective) description, a holistic scope of inquiry, and social change. Similarly, post–World War II (WWII) research by social psychologist Kurt Lewin (e.g., 1946) and the Tavistock Institute (e.g., Trist et al., 1990), for example, resulted in the emergence of participatory action research in which the researcher works collaboratively with the members of a community to bring about beneficial social change. Thus, participatory action research involved the explicit adoption of a value orientation rather than value neutrality. As Erickson (2018) explains, “In research efforts to effect social change, explicit value commitments had to be adopted if the work was to make change in specific directions” (p. 48). In the 1970s, the critical theory that is associated with the Frankfurt School of critical philosophy, which includes first-generation theorists, such as Max Horkheimer (e.g., 1968/2002), Theodor Adorno (e.g., Horkheimer & Adorno, 1947/2002), and Herbert Marcuse (e.g., 1955), and, in particular, the second-generation theorist Jürgen Habermas (e.g., 1981/1984, 1981/1987), began to inform qualitative research, perhaps marking the beginning of qualitative social justice research as many qualitative researchers understand it. Critical theory emphasizes practice-oriented social inquiry that is aimed at social/cultural critique and social change. More specifically, it involves social and cultural critique, which is then translated into social action that is oriented toward various forms of social change, such as advocacy, human emancipation, equity, and/or social justice. The social action engaged in can involve identifying and countering existing power structures, ideologies, and unjust practices; promoting/establishing democratic norms; and/or eliminating oppression, discrimination, marginalization, exploitation, and exclusion. Moreover, social action can focus on change that is internal to individuals, such as the elimination of false consciousness, ² or change that is external to individuals, involving a group of people or even an entire society.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, critical theory began to influence specific forms of qualitative research, such as feminist; critical race theory; gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT); poststructural; and postmodern research. Furthermore, in the 2000s, newer approaches to inquiry such as queer, autoethnographic, experimental, and indigenous forms of qualitative research, for example, all dealt, to varying degrees, with issues of social justice, as did mainstream qualitative research increasingly. As far as the current status of qualitative social justice research is concerned, Lincoln and Denzin (2018) provide the following assessment:

A mere two decades ago, only a handful of scholars were talking about the impact of their work on issues of social justice, by which they meant the ability of social science to be put to policy objectives with the purpose of redressing a variety of historically reified oppressions in modern life: racism, economic injustice, the “hidden injuries of class,” discrimination in the legal system, gender inequities, and the new oppressions resulting from the restructuring of the social welfare system to “workfare.” Today, many scholars, positivists and interpretivists alike, purposefully direct their own research toward uncovering such injustices, exposing how historic social structures reify and reinvent discriminatory practices, and proposing new forms of social structures that are less oppressive. (p. 924)

In addition, as discussed earlier, qualitative social justice research now deals with a wide range of social justice issues, and the analysis of those issues can occur at micro, meso, and macro levels (e.g., Charmaz et al., 2018). As for the future, social problems, whether they are local or more global, show no signs of diminishing, and social justice is therefore likely to continue to be a dominant theme in qualitative inquiry. In this regard, Lincoln and Denzin (2018) write,

It is unlikely that issues of social justice, or the more equal distribution of goods and services, or the elimination of discrimination and injustice, will go away. How can we ever return to our former naivete? We know too much, we understand too deeply, to go back now. (p. 925)

Derrida’s Second Definition of Deconstruction and Justice

Derrida defined deconstruction in a number of ways during his career. The first, and most well-known, definition of deconstruction involves two phases: the reversal of the existing hierarchy within a binary (i.e., the prioritizing or privileging of the originally suppressed or inferior term in the binary) followed by the reinscription (i.e., redefinition) of the originally suppressed term as the “origin” of the binary and the original hierarchy (e.g., Derrida, 1972/1981a, 1972/1981b). The second definition of deconstruction appears almost two decades later, in the essay Force of Law (Derrida, 1994/2002), and is more political, less metaphysical. ³ Here, he states that deconstruction is practiced in two ways, but that these ways should not be confused with the two stages in the previous definition of deconstruction. The first way is more formal and ahistorical and involves examining paradoxes (i.e., aporias or impasses), whereas the second way is genealogical and consists of carefully examining the history of a theme or concept. He then discusses three aporias, although he emphasizes that “in fact, there is only one aporetic potential that infinitely distributes itself” (Derrida, 1994/2002, p. 250). In other words, each of the three aporias is a variant of one aporia, which deals with the unstable relationship between justice, which is infinite and incalculable, and law, which is finite and calculable.

Derrida (1994/2002) refers to the first aporia as the “epokhē [i.e., epoche] of the rule” (p. 251). For a judge’s decision to be just, it is required to not only follow a rule of law but to also reinstitute that law through “a reinstituting act of interpretation” (p. 251)—as if that particular law had not existed prior to the decision. In other words, for a decision to be just, it must be unique, a “fresh judgment” (p. 251). More specifically, the decision must be both regulated and unregulated in that the law needs to be conserved, as well as destroyed or suspended (the term epoche refers to suspension) to the extent that it is reinvented (i.e., rejustified) in each new case. In this regard, Derrida states, “Each case is other, each decision is different and requires an absolutely unique interpretation, which no existing, coded rule can or ought to guarantee absolutely” (p. 251). A decision that simply adhered to the law would be right but not just, and the judge would be a mere “calculating machine” (p. 252).

The second aporia is referred to as “the haunting of the undecidable” (Derrida, 1994/2002, p. 252). A decision begins with the effort to read and interpret, but to make the decision itself, “undecidability” (p. 252) must be experienced. This involves paralysis and immobility; it is the experience of that which is foreign to the rule and the calculable but which is still required. We are obligated, through a kind of duty, to undergo this trial while also considering rules and law. As Derrida states,

A decision that would not go through the test and ordeal of the undecidable would not be a free decision; it would only be the programmable application or the continuous unfolding of a calculable process. It might perhaps be legal; it would not be just. (p. 252)

And once the trial of the undecidable is past, if, as Derrida maintains, that is even possible, the decision has once again followed a rule, whether given beforehand or invented in some way, and is therefore no longer fully (i.e., presently) just. Thus, justice is never present but, instead, is always to come. There is no point at which a decision can be considered to be presently and fully just. If it has not followed a rule, it is unjust, but, equally, if it has followed a rule, which itself has no absolute guarantee, then it is also unjust. Moreover, even if the rule was guaranteed, the decision would be calculated and therefore unjust. Because of this endless injustice, the ordeal of the undecidable can never be past. Instead, the undecidable, like a “ghost” (p. 253), remains a part of every decision, and “its ghostliness deconstructs from within all assurance of presence, all certainty or all alleged criteriology assuring us of the justice of a decision, in truth of the very event of a decision” (p. 253).

Derrida (1994/2002) refers to the third aporia as “the urgency that obstructs the horizon of knowledge” (p. 255). Although it is unpresentable, justice cannot—and must not—wait. As Derrida states, “A just decision is always required immediately, right away, as quickly as possible” (p. 255). Thus, paradoxically, although justice must be immediate, it always remains out of reach, thereby requiring a decision from us. The decision does not have at its disposal the unlimited knowledge and information to justify it, but even if it had all of these resources (and the time to do so), the moment of decision itself is, unavoidably, a finite moment characterized by urgency and precipitation. Drawing on Kierkegaard, Derrida refers to this moment of just decision as “a madness” (p. 255) because it must not be the result of the above-mentioned knowledge and information (i.e., it necessarily moves away from rationality and calculation). Also, the urgency of the moment of decision is why justice lacks any kind of horizon of expectation and, as a result, is always “to-come [à-venir]” (p. 256), which, importantly, needs to be differentiated from the future:

The future loses the openness, the coming of the other (who comes), without which there is no justice; and the future can always reproduce the present, announce itself or present itself as a future present in the modified form of the present. Justice remains to come, it remains by coming, it has to come, it is to-come, the to-come, it deploys the very dimension of events irreducibly to come. (p. 256)

In other words, the future can be envisioned as something that will be present at some later point in time, in the linear succession of nows (i.e., a future present, a not-yet-present, or a presently anticipated future), whereas justice involves an absolute future (i.e., a future as future), which can never arrive (i.e., justice involves a future that is not a future-present; justice cannot be anticipated). Thus, because justice cannot be anticipated, we need to avoid viewing it as some ideal, utopian future condition in which complete and perpetual justice, harmony, and peace will reign. Instead, because justice always exceeds our conceptions of a future that is beyond current anticipation, it involves a future condition for which another future condition would always be possible.

Furthermore, for Derrida (1994/2002), the term perhaps (“peut-être” is the French word for “perhaps” and means “can be”) is always associated with justice because justice requires that an event be possible, one that exceeds all calculation, rules, and law. This unavoidable excess of justice over calculation, rules, and law is “the opening of the call to justice, a call that is always wounded” (p. 257). It is important to note that, for Derrida, this unavoidable excess should not (and cannot) provide a justification for failing to become involved in various kinds of “juridico-political battles” (p. 257). And, for Derrida, law is the best (i.e., most just) way for us to respond in such emancipatory struggles (i.e., “incalculable justice commands calculation” [p. 257]).

Law, Justice, and Deconstruction

For Derrida (1994/2002), law (i.e., the structures that comprise judicial systems and which determine whether specific actions are legal, legitimate, or authorized) always constitutes an authorized force, one that is justified in its application, “even if this justification may be judged from elsewhere to be unjust or unjustifiable” (p. 233). ⁴ As discussed earlier, justice exceeds law, but it also possesses an urgency that demands us to make a decision, which necessarily involves calculation and, hence, injustice (Derrida, 1994/2002, 2003/2005). But, although justice exceeds law, it can also have a strange relationship with law, including having no relationship to it at all:

I want to insist at once to reserve the possibility of a justice, indeed of a law [loi] that not only exceeds or contradicts law but also, perhaps, has no relation to law, or maintains such a strange relation to it that it may just as well demand law as exclude it. (Derrida, 1994/2002, p. 233)

Thus, justice is neither a principle, which would mean that we would know at present what justice is, nor an ideal, which would mean that we would know the nature of a future justice. As noted earlier, it is part of the structure of justice that it can never be present (Derrida, 1994/2002, 2003/2005), and it is therefore not representable as such. In other words, we can never decide, once and for all, what justice is, and, hence, it remains an impossibility. Justice is only thinkable (and possible) as “an experience of the impossible” (Derrida, 1994/2002, p. 244), a point that is discussed in more detail in the following.

Force of Law is also significant in that Derrida (1994/2002) uses his philosophy, and deconstruction in particular, to examine fundamental aspects of legal thought in a radically new way. Previously, deconstruction had focused on the logocentric nature of the Western (modernist) philosophical tradition, but now it is being used to understand justice and its relationship to the law. In fact, he maintains that “deconstruction is justice” (p. 243). Because the law is constructed or, by definition, ultimately lacks a foundation, it is deconstructible. This deconstructibility is crucial because it allows for the possibility of improving laws and, more generally, for historical progress. Justice (like deconstruction itself), however, is not deconstructible: it is what drives or impels us to improve (i.e., deconstruct) the law (Derrida, 1997). In other words, as Derrida (1997) notes, “without a call for justice we would not have any interest in deconstructing the law” (p. 16). Also, paradoxically, the deconstructibility of law allows for the possibility of deconstruction (Derrida, 1994/2002). Similarly, the undeconstructibility of justice allows for the possibility of deconstruction, so that both of them (i.e., the deconstructibility of law and the undeconstructibility of justice) are in fact inseparable. In other words, deconstruction occurs in the interval between the deconstructibility of law and the undeconstructibility of justice. Furthermore, deconstruction is only possible as “an experience of the impossible” (Derrida, 1994/2002, p. 243), one that is located where justice (even if it is never present) is.

Given its relationship to deconstruction, we can also see that justice is related to Derrida’s (e.g., 1967/1973a, 1967/1973b, 1967/1976) (non) concept of différance. Différance cannot be made present/revealed (i.e., it is not a thing) because it lacks any essence or meaning. Instead, it needs to be viewed as a process or force. The force that Derrida is referring to in Force of Law has a differential character, involving an ungrounded process of differentiation, which is différance. As Derrida (1994/2002) notes, “In the texts I just evoked, it is always a matter of differential force, of difference as difference of force, of force as différance or force of différance (différance is a force différée-différante” (pp. 234–235). In terms of justice, specifically, différance involves a pledge, which is our response to the demand for justice. Derrida describes this relationship in the following way:

In the incoercible différance the here-now [l’ici-maintenant] unfurls. Without lateness, without delay, but without presence, it is the precipitation of an absolute singularity, singular because differing, precisely, and always other, binding itself necessarily to the form of the instant, in imminence and in urgency: even if it moves toward what remains to come, there is the pledge [le gage] (promise, engagement, injunction and response to the injunction, and so forth). The pledge is given here and now, even before, perhaps, a decision confirms it. It thus responds without delay to the demand of justice. The latter by definition is impatient, uncompromising, and unconditional. (Derrida, 1993/1994, p. 60)

In other words, the injunction of différance is here-now without presence—justice occurring now, without presence. ⁵ Thus, the ethico-political imperative of justice occurs now, takes place at this very moment, and, as discussed earlier, cannot be delayed to some utopian future.

Derrida’s Concept of Justice and Qualitative Social Justice Research

Prior to discussing the implications of Derrida’s concept of justice for critically informed qualitative social justice research, it is important to note that qualitative researchers use the concept of social justice in a variety of ways. In terms of the Social Sciences Citation Index literature search discussed earlier, four patterns were evident in the journal articles retrieved. In some journal articles, social justice, a more specific form of it (e.g., reproductive justice, racial justice, and environmental justice), or social justice stated in other terms (e.g., social change) is not stated explicitly but is an implicit goal of the study. In the second pattern, social justice, a more specific form of it, or social justice stated in other terms is an implicit rather than an explicit goal of the study, but the term justice (or a related term) is used in a specialized way to describe participants (e.g., “justice-involved girls” [Arnull & Ryder, 2019, p. 1362]), an institution (e.g., “high school classrooms involved in youth-led social change initiatives” [Kornbluh, 2019, p. 1108]), or a legal system (e.g., “juvenile justice systems” [Arnull & Ryder, 2019, p. 1362]), for example. In the third pattern, social justice, or a more specific form of it, is stated explicitly and is an explicit goal of the study. For example, in their study of four transnational research collectives, and the decolonial solidarity that emerged in these collectives as a result of three constellations of co-resistance, Atallah et al. (2022) describe their efforts to envision and realize justice for colonized, historically enslaved, and marginalized groups of people:

We write this chapter at a time when “the governing tape of the world” (W. E. Dubois cited in Wynter & McKittrick, 2015), with all its destructive energies accumulating over hundreds of years across the Global South, reveals the ways in which the historically enslaved, the colonized, and the racialized/gendered/classed/otherized marginalized are relegated into states of precarity and invisibility, into subhuman zones of material deprivation and social death (Cacho, 2012). We write this chapter as we sit in virtual and in-person circles and community gatherings with our coalitions in Palestine, in Maya communities in Northeast India, in Mapuche communities in Chile, and in Black and Brown communities in Boston and beyond—breaking the barriers between our communities-in-struggle with different geographies yet parallel principles for remembering and re-envisioning what justice and health can look like, sound like, and feel like [emphasis added]. (p. 682)

In the final pattern, social justice, or a more specific form of it, provides a conceptual or theoretical framework for designing the study and/or analyzing the data collected.

An important conclusion that can be drawn from at least the first three of the above patterns is that justice often functions as a relatively abstract goal of inquiry in social justice research, one that is secondary to the more concrete goal of addressing a particular social problem. This insight is important when considering the implications of Derrida’s (1994/2002, 1997, 2003/2005) analysis of justice for critical forms of qualitative social justice research. Two such implications are apparent, with the first of these involving the second and third aporias in Derrida’s (1994/2002) second definition of deconstruction. In terms of the second aporia, in making a decision to pursue a particular social justice issue, a researcher necessarily experiences “undecidability,” which involves paralysis and immobility but does not suggest the kind of inactivity that results from despair or fear, for example. The decision is distinguished from rules and law (i.e., the calculable or calculation), if relevant, but we could add here that if a law exists, the researcher’s decision to pursue a particular social justice issue can involve, implicitly or explicitly, a law that is considered right (i.e., the law is right but is not enforced and, hence, is consistent with the social justice that is being pursued) or a law that is considered wrong (i.e., the law is wrong and is enforced and, hence, is inconsistent with the social justice that is being pursued). ⁶ Moreover, the “ghostliness” of undecidability, which remains inherent in any decision, deconstructs the researcher’s certainty about the justice of his or her decision, a point that is discussed in more detail in the following.

In terms of Derrida’s (1994/2002) third aporia, and as discussed earlier, unlike the future, which can be present at some later time (as a future present), justice can never be present, is always to-come. In other words, justice cannot be anticipated: it always exceeds our specific expectations of the future, even a future that is beyond our current anticipation. Thus, the researcher’s decision to focus on a specific social justice issue involves a future that cannot be anticipated, is not known. That is, regardless of what the researcher may anticipate about the future as it relates to the social justice issue being investigated, her or his decision must rupture or exceed that anticipatory framework. And, in that sense, the decision itself must differ fundamentally from all of the researcher’s prior preparation for it. For Derrida, it is in taking this leap, away from rationality and calculative reasoning, that responsibility arises.

The second, and perhaps more important, implication of Derrida’s (1994/2002, 1997, 2003/2005) concept of justice for critically informed qualitative social justice research is that justice cannot function for researchers as a guiding principle or ideal that is worked toward. In OTHER words, we cannot know, once and for all, what justice is. It can never be present and, hence, is unrepresentable either to researchers or in research reports. It is for this reason that our understanding of social justice is always evolving. For example, if we focus on the issues of gender expression and sexual identity, the acronym LGB was used widely in the scholarly literature, and within society in general, during much of the 1990s. During the 1990s, however, the terms transgender and queer became increasingly more prominent, and by the 2000s, expansion of the acronym to LGBTQ was widespread. Since then, the acronym has expanded to be even more inclusive, and one of its contemporary forms could be stated as LGBTQQIP2SA+, where the second Q refers to questioning, ⁷ I refers to intersex, ⁸ P refers to pansexual, ⁹ 2S refers to two-spirited, ¹⁰ A refers to asexual or aromantic, ¹¹ and + refers to other gender expressions and sexual identities that are not captured by the acronym. Thus, for social justice researchers who focused on LGBTQ issues in the 2000s, for example, gender expressions and sexual identities such as intersex, pansexual, and two-spirited would likely have been unimaginable. Stated differently, although intersex, pansexual, and two-spirited people have likely always been aware of their identity, social justice researchers in the 2000s would likely not have been aware that social justice included these groups. Similarly, at present, social justice researchers cannot anticipate how the acronym LGBTQQIP2SA+ will change in the future (i.e., our understanding of gender expression and sexual identity will continue to evolve over time) and, more generally, how their own understanding of social justice will change in the future. Thus, the call to justice is an infinite one that qualitative researchers can never satisfy. Also, for Derrida, justice is what impels qualitative researchers to pursue social justice issues to improve people’s lives.

Most qualitative social justice research is guided, either explicitly or implicitly, by a modernist conception of justice that has its basis in critical theory (e.g., Habermas, 1981/1984, 1981/1987). As discussed earlier, critical theory emphasizes practical social inquiry that is aimed at social/cultural critique and social transformation (i.e., the generation of practical solutions to social problems). Thus, critical theory, and the qualitative social justice research that is informed by it, emphasize praxis, and they therefore assume that justice is something that can be achieved (i.e., made present or revealed). Moreover, they focus on epistemology, although their understanding of this term differs significantly from that of traditional (modern) philosophy and focuses, instead, on the production of practical knowledge (i.e., knowledge takes the form of social critique and social action).

Thus, Derrida’s (1994/2002, 1997, 2003/2005) concept of justice is ontological, whereas critical theory’s concept of justice is epistemological. The latter is consistent with the more general approach taken in mainstream qualitative research, and modern science in general, where methodological and theoretical issues are dealt with at the level of abstract epistemology rather than at the level of ontology, which, for continental philosophy, provides their ultimate basis. In other words, for Derrida (e.g., 1967/1976, 1972/1981a, 1972/1982) and continental philosophy in general, epistemology necessarily opens onto ontology, and, equally important, the latter is epistemologically irrecuperable. One way in which Derrida reduces epistemology to ontology is by deconstructing the former. Epistemology is, for him, logocentric in that it assumes the centrality of the logos. Within philosophy, the term logos has a variety of meanings (e.g., rationality, logic, theory, discourse, explanation, word, speech, and meaning), but for Derrida’s deconstruction of epistemology, logos refers specifically to rationality, logic, and meaning. For our purposes, one important aspect of his critique of epistemology and logocentrism is that they privilege presence, which he considers to be one of the most significant errors of modern Western philosophy (e.g., Derrida, 1967/1976, 1972/1982). In addition, because of its reliance on modern philosophy, this criticism applies equally to mainstream qualitative research and modern science in general. Presence can take the form of a perception, observation, concept, idea, or essence, and modern philosophy has focused largely on something being present in the form of an object, to a knowing subject. It is important to emphasize here that Derrida is not questioning the intrinsic value of presence because all knowledge, even practical knowledge, has its basis in presence. What is being questioned, however, is the failure of modern philosophy to think radically enough about the issue of presence. For Derrida (e.g., 1967/1973a, 1967/1976, 1972/1982), by beginning with presence, modern philosophy excludes any consideration of nonpresence (i.e., différance), which, as discussed earlier, cannot be made present/revealed. Moreover, nonpresence is always internal to presence. Thus, from a Derridean perspective, because of their epistemological orientation, critical theory and the qualitative social justice research that is informed by it have failed to think radically enough about the concept of justice, insofar as justice has been equated with presence. In other words, the modernist concept of justice that they employ is based on an unquestioned value: presence. Ontologically, Derrida’s concept of justice, like différance, operates below, or is “prior to,” the modernist concept of justice.

Although this article, as part of the ontological turn (e.g., Lather & St. Pierre, 2013; St. Pierre, 2015) in qualitative inquiry, focuses on ontological issues and views those issues as fundamental, it is still valuable to consider what it would mean, methodologically, for critically informed qualitative social justice research to adopt Derrida’s (1994/2002, 1997, 2003/2005) concept of justice. To be sure, the emphasis on social/cultural critique and social action/transformation would not change, and the focus on research praxis would therefore also remain. At a minimum, however, adopting a Derridean understanding of justice would change significantly how social justice researchers view justice and social justice research. More specifically, it would change the meaning that researchers assign to their own social justice research and to social justice research in general. To the extent that justice functions, either explicitly or implicitly, as a guiding principle or ideal during research, research would instead be guided, more directly, by the desire to bring about social change that benefits those studied. In addition, adopting a Derridean concept of justice would change the meaning that researchers assign to the social action engaged in during research. To the extent that justice informs, either explicitly or implicitly, those actions, they would instead be guided, more concretely, by the desire to effect social change that benefits the group studied. Finally, adopting a Derridean concept of justice would change the meaning that researchers assign to the outcomes of their research. To the extent that those outcomes are viewed as “achieving” justice, attention would instead be focused on the extent to which those outcomes produce positive social change for the group studied.

As discussed earlier, critical theory (e.g., Habermas, 1981/1984, 1981/1987) and the qualitative social justice research that is informed by it, conceive of justice as something that can be achieved or made present. For Derrida (1994/2002, 1997, 2003/2005), however, justice can never be present, can never arrive: it is in fact impossible. It always exceeds our specific expectations of the future. More generally, Derrida’s concept of justice is ontological, whereas critical theory’s concept of justice is epistemological. For Derrida (e.g., 1967/1976, 1972/1981a, 1972/1982), and for continental philosophy in general, however, epistemology opens onto ontology and, ontologically, Derrida’s concept of justice is “prior to” critical theory’s concept of justice. Adopting a Derridean understanding of justice would change significantly how social justice researchers view justice and social justice research. Because we cannot know what justice is, it cannot function as a guiding principle or an ideal for social justice research. And, furthermore, although there will always be new social problems that call out for justice, the call to justice is infinite: can never be satisfied.