Jason Danely

From the back cover…

Vulnerability is a fundamental aspect of existence, giving rise to the need for care in various forms. Yet we are not all vulnerable in the same way, and not all vulnerabilities are equally recognised or cared for. This transdisciplinary volume considers how vulnerability and care are shaped by relations of power within contemporary contexts of war, development, environmental degradation, sexual violence, aging populations and economic precarity.

It proposes that care for vulnerable populations or individuals is inseparable from other political processes of recognition, welfare, healthcare and security, whilst also exploring vulnerability as a shared, generative condition that makes caring possible. Ethnographic and narrative accounts of vulnerable life and caring relations in various geographical regions - including Japan, Uganda, Micronesia, Iraq, Mexico, the UK and the US - are interspersed with perspectives from philosophy, International Relations, social and cultural theory, and more, resulting in a compelling series of intellectual exchanges, creative frictions and provocative insights.

Table of Contents

Bodies, Resistance, Despair

1:Bodies that Still Matter, JUDITH BUTLER
2:Decolonial Feminism and Global Politics, ROSALBA ICAZA
3:Meteorological Moods and Atmospheric Attunements, C. JASON THROOP
Response: The Terror of Invulnerability, RAHUL RAO

Ambiguity, Affectivity, Violence

4:The Problems and Potentials of Vulnerability, ERINN GILSON
5:Vulnerable Civilians: Coalition Checkpoints and the Perception of Hostile Intent, THOMAS GREGORY
6:Revealed in the Wound: Medical Care and the Ecologies of War in Post-Occupation Iraq, OMAR DEWACHI
Response: On the Condition of Being Open, VÉRONIQUE PIN-FAT

Narrative, Relationality, Disclosure

7:The politics of care: from biomedical transformation to narrative vulnerability, JACKIE SCULLY
8:"It rips you to bits!": Woundedness and Compassion in Carers' Narratives, JASON DANELY
9:Disclosing an Experience of Sexual Assault: Ethics and the Role of the Confidant, ANN CAHILL
Response: Tenuous Moorings, YASMIN GUNARATNAM

Dependence, Distribution, Waiting

10:Vulnerability as Radically Social: Cash and Care for the Elderly in Uganda, LOTTE MEINERT
11:Watchful Waiting: Temporalities of Crisis and Care in the UK: National Health Service, LISA BARAITSER AND WILLIAM BROOK
Response: The Hopeless Hopeful Time of Caring, TIFFANY PAGE