{"title":"In defense of vulnerability.","authors":"Catherine Robinson","doi":"10.1057/s41286-022-00146-3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Is vulnerability a poisoned conceptual chalice from which only individualized notions of suffering and responsibility can emerge? What would the concept of vulnerability have to <i>do</i> in order to be considered valuable in advancing social justice? In this article I utilize critique of the 'vulnerability turn' in child and youth policy as a launch pad into rethinking an emboldened account of vulnerability. In particular, I am drawn to the urgency of vulnerability, understood as an immediate openness to wounding, and find ethical and practical value in the unfinished business of struggling to justly define what constitutes vulnerability and who counts as vulnerable. Grounding theoretical exploration in reflections on unique Australian research on unaccompanied homeless children, the article seeks to advance vulnerability as a potentially radical tool for research and welfare policy that can grip the lived complexity of systemic and personal adversity.</p>","PeriodicalId":46273,"journal":{"name":"Subjectivity","volume":"30 1","pages":"3-22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9846654/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Subjectivity","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41286-022-00146-3","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Is vulnerability a poisoned conceptual chalice from which only individualized notions of suffering and responsibility can emerge? What would the concept of vulnerability have to do in order to be considered valuable in advancing social justice? In this article I utilize critique of the 'vulnerability turn' in child and youth policy as a launch pad into rethinking an emboldened account of vulnerability. In particular, I am drawn to the urgency of vulnerability, understood as an immediate openness to wounding, and find ethical and practical value in the unfinished business of struggling to justly define what constitutes vulnerability and who counts as vulnerable. Grounding theoretical exploration in reflections on unique Australian research on unaccompanied homeless children, the article seeks to advance vulnerability as a potentially radical tool for research and welfare policy that can grip the lived complexity of systemic and personal adversity.
期刊介绍:
Subjectivity is an international, transdisciplinary journal examining the social, cultural, historical and material processes, dynamics and structures of human experience. As topic, problem and resource, notions of subjectivity are relevant to many disciplines, including cultural studies, sociology, social theory, geography, anthropology and psychology. The journal brings together scholars from across the social sciences and the humanities, publishing high-quality theoretical and empirical papers that address the processes by which subjectivities are produced, explore subjectivity as a locus of social change, and examine how emerging subjectivities remake our social worlds.