Vulnerability, Precariousness, and Precarity a joint research seminar at Law and Humanities and Birkbeck Gender and Sexuality
When:
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Venue:
Birkbeck Central
Vulnerability, Precariousness, and Precarity: Judith Butler’s Framework for Rethinking Dilemmas in the Political Field
Building on Fraser’s diagnosis of the post-socialist condition, this research proposes as its object of study an analysis of Judith Butler’s thought, particularly regarding concepts such as vulnerability, precariousness, and precarity. Our aim is to show that, while Butler is deeply influenced by Foucault and Derrida—deploying a deconstructive gesture toward categories such as the subject, identity, and even “women”—the strong influence of critical theory has nevertheless led her to remain concerned with central issues of this debate, such as political agency and coalition politics. This presentation seeks to analyse how this conceptual field of vulnerability – which encompasses the notions of precariousness and precarity – can be understood not merely as a form of passivity, but also as a point of departure for political agency. We argue that it can provide the basis for new forms of political coalition capable of responding to some of the central dilemmas of contemporary political debate. When we refer to contemporary political dilemmas, we are pointing to the ways in which so-called identity politics, or politics of difference (concerned with issues such as gender, race, among others), have predominated in the political landscape since the 1980s, generating a series of counterreactions. One of the central claims advanced by their critics is that such politics fragment collective struggle, given the absence of a more general or universal category capable of unifying political action. Through the analysis of specific and concrete forms of violence, we aim to show that any political category capable of enabling broader coalitions cannot dispense with attention to the distinct experiences of lives marked by gender and race. Our hypothesis is that Butler’s conceptual field of vulnerability can offer precisely such a starting point, since, on the one hand, it refers to something shared by all living beings and, on the other, draws attention to the differential distribution of precarity.
Speaker:Daniela Blanco is a Visiting Researcher at Birkbeck, University of London, and a Postdoctoral Researcher in Philosophy at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ, CAPES PIPD). She previously held a temporary lectureship in Philosophy and Human Sciences at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). She holds a PhD, MA and BA in Philosophy from the University of São Paulo (USP). Her research sits at the intersection of political philosophy, aesthetics and gender studies, with a focus on Jacques Rancière, Michel Foucault and Judith Butler. She is a former Associate Editor of Rapsódia Journal and a member of ABRE, the IAA, the ANPOF Aesthetics Working Group, and LAFITA/CNPq.
Date: Tuesday 19th of May 2026
Time: 2-3.30
Place: Birkbeck Central G09
Contact name: Elena Loizidou
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