Vulnerability in Resistance

by Judith Butler (Editor), Zeynep Gambetti (Editor), Leticia Sabsay (Editor)

Vulnerability and resistance have often been seen as opposites, with the assumption that vulnerability requires protection and the strengthening of paternalistic power at the expense of collective resistance. Focusing on political movements and cultural practices in different global locations, including Turkey, Palestine, France, and the former Yugoslavia, the contributors to Vulnerability in Resistance articulate an understanding of the role of vulnerability in practices of resistance. They consider how vulnerability is constructed, invoked, and mobilized within neoliberal discourse, the politics of war, resistance to authoritarian and securitarian power, in LGBTQI struggles, and in the resistance to occupation and colonial violence. The essays offer a feminist account of political agency by exploring occupy movements and street politics, informal groups at checkpoints and barricades, practices of self-defense, hunger strikes, transgressive enactments of solidarity and mourning, infrastructural mobilizations, and aesthetic and erotic interventions into public space that mobilize memory and expose forms of power. Pointing to possible strategies for a feminist politics of transversal engagements and suggesting a politics of bodily resistance that does not disavow forms of vulnerability, the contributors develop a new conception of embodiment and sociality within fields of contemporary power.

Contributors: Meltem Ahiska, Athena Athanasiou, Sarah Bracke, Judith Butler, Elsa Dorlin, Basak Ertür, Zeynep Gambetti, Rema Hammami, Marianne Hirsch, Elena Loizidou, Leticia Sabsay, Nükhet Sirman, Elena Tzelepis

Genres: Feminism, Philosophy, Theory, Social Justice, Nonfiction, Cultural, Queer

352 pages, Paperback

Published November 8, 2016

About the author

Judith Butler is an American post-structuralist and feminist philosopher who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy and ethics. They are currently a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.

Butler received their Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University in 1984, for a dissertation subsequently published as Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France. In the late-1980s they held several teaching and research appointments, and were involved in "post-structuralist" efforts within Western feminist theory to question the "presuppositional terms" of feminism.

Their research ranges from literary theory, modern philosophical fiction, feminist and sexuality studies, to 19th- and 20th-century European literature and philosophy, Kafka and loss, and mourning and war. Their most recent work focuses on Jewish philosophy and exploring pre- and post-Zionist criticisms of state violence.

Reviews

[Javier Ormeno · Rating 4 out of 5]

The body is the space where we inhabit. It is the space where we become vulnerable to violence, abduction, imposition of norms and pain. Paradoxically, it is this space of vulnerability the same space where resistance can happen. A present body is the sign of resistance. The book goes through examples of how embodiment can be shown through fine and performative arts; it elaborates on how experience of vulnerability in some sense equalises differences among oppressed groups; and most notably analyses the embodied resistance during Gezi park protest.

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers some profound moments and strategies to commence radical retheorizations of both vulnerability and resistance, and vulnerability in resistance.

The challenge is that it is a book composed of chapters by different authors. While these case studies and insights are important, the capacity of these divergent chapters to align into an argument is a challenge.

As always, Butler's chapter is magnificent. But I perticularly want to log Leticia Sabsay's "Permeable bodies: vulnerability, affective powers, hegemony." This is the last chapter in the book. It is the strongest and most provocative, exploring the political capacity of "shared vulnerability." In many ways, the project of the title begins with this last chapter. There is outstanding research to develop from the foundations created in this book.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for a research paper and honestly anything Butler puts out is worth the read. I liked Sabasy’s chapter the most though

[Virga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gera. Retai pasitaiko, kad beveik visi straipsniai yra su neatsitiktinių reiškinių analizėmis. Ne tik geriau paaiškėja atskiros politinės įtampos, konfliktai ir grupės, kurios jų metu yra pažeidžiamiausios, bet ir šiandieninio feminizmo akcentai. Iš straipsnių rinkinio retai kada tikiesi ko gero, bet va - pasitaiko.

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

A diverse, though cohesive, group of essays that provide some interesting perspectives on vulnerability and its role in oppression and resistance.

"The point is to show that vulnerability is part of resistance, made manifest by new forms of embodied political interventions and modes of alliance that are characterized by interdependency and public action. These hold the promise of developing new modes of collective agency that do not deny vulnerability as a resource and that aspire to equality, freedom, and justice as their political aims."

[Katrinka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really interesting and insightful essays combined with others that are so steeped in academese that they suck all the life out of their subjects.

[val andrés · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brillante qué puedo decir.