Guest Editor's Introduction

Vulnerability and Inquiring into Relationality

Authors

• Marja-Liisa Honkasalo University of Helsinki https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1652-8120

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.v43i3.82725

Abstract

This introduction provides an analytical back ground for the notion of vulnerability as it is currently perceived mainly in social sciences, ethics, philosophy, queer studies and governmentality. Used both as descriptive and normative term, vulnerability, along with resilience and policy management, has acquired political dimensions, which are distant from those given by the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas. In present day social and political discussions vulnerability has gained enormous popularity and seems to be a genuine 'sticky concept', an adhesive cluster of heterogeneous conceptual elements.   Keywords: vulnerability, resilience, governmentality, intersectionality, racism, queer, vulnerable agency, sticky concept