Marja-Liisa Honkasalo GUEST EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Vulnerability and Inquiring into Relationality
abstract This introduction provides an analytical background 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
Introduction1 Vulnerability as a notion is neutral but it is applied in descriptive and normative ways. It has Vulnerability is about the porousness of bound multiple meanings that vary in shifting contexts. aries.2 This is the argument that runs through However, in scientific, political, and public this special issue. Nature, minds, humans, discussions, vulnerability has mostly taken on nonhumans, and the earth are open and a ‘dark’ character, as the anthropologist Sherry exposed to the environment and towards other Ortner (2016) puts it, because what is often beings, nonbeings and systems. In addition to emphasized is the openness to danger, disaster, vulnerability, other concepts like precariosity, suffering, and social control, or, with weakness fragility, risk, and resilience are also taken up or lack of agency. However, the core of the in the discussions (Butler 2009; Fineman 2008; argument in this special issue deviates from this: Sen 1982; Douglas 1966; Evans and Reid being exposed signifies a contingent possibility 3 2015; Brunila and Rossi 2018). The concept of openness towards the world. Vulnerability of resilience has outlined over the past two also includes the ability to become animated decades the conceptual background that makes and affected, to be able to bring things together 4 comprehensible the important cluster of their and to mobilize. Vulnerability allows contagion; mutual relationships. vulnerability touches. This special issue emphasizes
suomen antropologi | volume 43 issue 3 autumn 2018 1 Marja-Liisa Honkasalo vulnerability as relational, as the capacity and it. Yet, vulnerability is a truly ‘sticky concept’, necessity to relate to, and to be conditioned by a cluster of heterogeneous conceptual elements and dependent on known and unknown others. like an adhesive tape (Masscehelein 2011: 13; Relationality is also about processes, which see also Ahmed 2014: 91). Stickiness is about consent to mediation between vulnerability as the quality of the notion that along its travel a universal, and as a specific condition shaped by across the disciplines attracts new associations its social, political, and cultural contexts.5 The and variations which, according to Masschelein twin concept of precariosity often overlaps with (2011) are not always motivated by conscious vulnerability in anthropological discussions. As or deliberative moves. In addition to embedded Tsing (2015: 29) puts it, we need to acknowledge affectivity this ensures the dynamism of the our vulnerability to others: ‘In order to survive, concept. Due to the multiplicity of meanings, we need help and help is always in the service vulnerability is an extremely powerful notion. of another, with or without intent’. In this At least five themes of vulnerability relevant ontological meaning, relationality opens up for current anthropological debates can be a view on vulnerability as its very condition. listed. First, the Anthropocene, climate change8 Along with resilience, a notion that is and rearmament; second, livable lives, global ‘equivalent but opposite’ to vulnerability, as violence, contentious politics, and resistance; Adger (2000) puts it, interest in vulnerability as third, governmentality, classification, and control; a topic has increased tremendously over the last fourth, subjectivity and agency and fifth, what is few decades, in the domains of the environment, called the ‘debate on the end of the world’ (see climate, and information technology research in e.g. Tsing, ibid.) Vulnerability as a theme runs addition to risk, catastrophe and disaster research through all of them. and their prevention practices. Vulnerability By focusing especially on the third has become a commonplace in several political and fourth themes listed above, this special and social accounts, in scientific and public issue examines relationality as how and why discussions notably in ecological, environmental, vulnerability matters. The aim of this issue is ethical, health, educational and social policy, legal to discuss vulnerability in a dialogue between politics and policies, in immigration and refugee researchers in anthropology, philosophy, ethics, issues and in global debates concerning violence and social policy and give the philosophical and and exclusion, along with resilience in crisis ethnographic approaches a space to talk to each management. other. The power of anthropological research is A search on vulnerability solely in English to study its objects in subtle and dense contexts social science databases gives a result of more and to bring detailed explorations to abstract than 189,484 entries, an increase of almost 80 % philosophical theorizing. The contributors of from the early 1990s. The search on resilience this special issue ask questions about what is gives 980,5656 entries just in the social science vulnerability. What does it do? How is it described databases alone. Anthropologists have been and what kinds of contribution do the various interested in the ways in which various kinds of descriptions provide to help us understand this vulnerabilities are performed and produced as virtual Zeitgeist we live by (Brown, Ecclestone and sets of material conditions and discourses, about Emmel 2017)? How is vulnerability used for the ‘what vulnerability is and what it does’, as the purposes of power? In what ways does the notion research program ‘Engaging vulnerability’7 puts both hide and lay bare the core cultural values
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of autonomy, dependency, and power? In what [1972]) in which vulnerability as vulnus,11 ways does it work as a cultural critique? By asking a wound, is understood as a human universal, as questions such as these, the authors of this issue inherent in life. According to Arendt,12 what is want to challenge and heighten the significance of unique to the human condition is vulnerability. vulnerability both as an interdisciplinary research As exposed to plurality and unpredictability, 9 area and as a significant aspect of anthropology. vulnerability comprises the condition of action The current debates on vulnerability and thinking.13 contain a myriad controversial definitions and understandings. As a sticky concept vulnerability Because the actor always moves among may refer to a universal condition but also to and in relation to other acting beings, he is a phenomenon, policy imperative, psychoemo never merely a “doer” but always and at the tional trait, or to an experience at an individual, same time a sufferer. To do and to suffer are intersubjective, or a population level, and to like opposite sides of the same coin, and a political ontology. Besides being a focus of the story that an act starts is composed of concern in a variety of separate academic domains, its consequent deeds and sufferings. These vulnerability is also an interdisciplinary notion, consequences are boundless, because action, a true boundary concept (Gieryn 1983: 792) though it may proceed from nowhere, so in the meaning of negotiations between to speak, acts into a medium where every ‘demarcations of disciplines, specialties, or reaction becomes a chain reaction and theoretical orientations between and across where every process is the cause of new several boundaries within science’. My aim in processes. (Arendt 1958: 190) this introduction is to track vulnerability through the relevant literature that touches upon the Levinas’s approach to vulnerability originates questions presented above and, by doing so, give from a different perspective. Constituting the a background to the authors’ approaches. ground of his ethics, vulnerability is a call; it is In what follows, in order to give a general shared in proximity to the other’s face. Levinas background for the contributing articles, finds there the source of responsibility that is I outline an itinerary of the notion through asymmetrical and ‘extends to responsibility some of its history as well as the paths across the for the other’s responsibility’ (Levinas 2003 relevant scholarly disciplines pertinent for the [1972]: 25). Both Arendt’s and Levinas’s 10 understanding of the notion as a dispositive. understanding of vulnerability is grounded on Moreover, by asking what vulnerability does, relationality. As Robert Bernasconi concludes I sketch out the use of vulnerability in current his article, ‘To that extent my vulnerability is governmentality and policy making. the site of relationality because its basis lies in the other’s vulnerability, in her pain’. Elisa About historical origins Aaltola in her article adds the Levinasian idea of shared vulnerability to the discussion of The concept of vulnerability stems from two relationality and Simone Weil’s ways of thinking main intellectual roots. The first springs from about vulnerability as communality between all philosophical ontological discussions, notably individuals. Vulnerability enhances attentiveness, from the works of Hannah Arendt (1958) which for Weil means openness to the other and and Emmanuel Levinas (1969 [1961]; 2003 to love. In order to be affected by other beings,
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one must actively open up to others, taking the side of being at risk with deficient means to cope risk of embracing one’s lack of control, which with deficiently functioning social institutions’ in turn holds the promise of being transformed (see e.g. Watts and Bohl 1999). For humans by new encounters. Vulnerability refers both to and nonhumans who are dependent on others the human condition and to affectability—one’s to survive and in need of some basic provision, openness to the world. Later philosophers such society, cultures, and communities are ways of as Judith Butler (2009) have elaborated these handling threats and risks. Later, the growing thoughts towards a social and political condition discussions of climate change, nuclear rearmament, in our lives (see Karhu 2017: 74). and more generally the Anthropocene have The second root of vulnerability originates increased concerns about the vulnerability of the from the sciences, notably ecology, geography, and cosmos. Both human and non-human beings are later the studies of risk, disaster, natural hazards, being threatened and new ways to deal with this and the insecurity of technological systems (see threat are needed. In addition to research, public Burton et. al 1978; Bankoff 2007). Together with and popular media, as well as social and political adaptation and balance, vulnerability has been institutions, organizations, and movements need used as a core concept in the systems theoretical to be involved. approaches to the study of multiple systems. From the early works of Blaikie et al. (1994) vulnerability Vulnerability and was considered in the cross-illumination of social, the empirical political, natural, and economic factors in the study of people at risk. In these debates, the Vulnerability has been widely used, both impact of poverty and famine was important both descriptively and normatively, for social and in cultural geography and development studies political classification of populations, and can (Chambers 1989; Sen 1982). Later, vulnerability, also be comprehended as a quality, status, or adaptation and resilience fleshed out a tripartite identity (Virokannas, Liuski and Kuronen conceptual content to describe the effects of 2018). The sociologist of health, Graham ecological and ensuing social changes as well as Scambler (2019), lists seven different types or the development of strategies to reduce the impact qualities of vulnerability, which in his opinion of risk and harm. Adaptation and vulnerability as have a social impact that is tantamount to harm individual strategies and traits, respectively, and on health at the levels of structure, culture, or were made use of in the research in development agency. His analysis reflects a more general psychology and stress research and later in health empirical understanding of vulnerability15 prevention research (e.g. Antonovski 1979). as something threatening or negative, as ‘a For the social sciences, vulnerability became typology that is useful for the sociological an important notion through Amartya Sen’s explanations of vulnerability-induced health (1982) works on famine and poverty in the field disadvantage’ (Scambler 2019: 1). Scambler’s 14 of development studies. Sen’s definition of analysis represents the general understanding vulnerability comprises a double, a characteristic of vulnerability as negative, a view that is that runs through ‘the social life’ of the quite common in health and risk research. It is notion: vulnerability is about being exposed and a common tool of governance and is currently about relations, it includes both the structural a frequently applied vehicle for classification natural, social, and political side and ‘the internal of people ‘at risk’. I will return to this theme in
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more detail in the section ‘Vulnerability does’. applied to persons considered dependent, fragile, However, such classifications of vulnerability or threatened for one reason or another. It is have been intensely criticized by social and also applied to surroundings that are considered political scientists (Brown 2011; Bledsoe precarious; and to persons classified as deviant, 2012; Brown, Ecclestone and Emmel 2017). poor, and excluded, in other words to ‘others’. Vulnerability as a condition is not neutral but In this context, several anthropologists have is politically mediated and consequently not highlighted the lack of an emic dimension to the suitable for classificatory purposes. According concept and its consequences. to Brown (2011: 314), rather than being an innocent concept, the notion of vulnerability Ethical approaches is ‘loaded with political, moral, and practical and relationality implications’. Classifications can be a threat to social justice, especially to people and The moral and legal philosopher Martha groups who are classified without their emic Albertson Fineman, founder of the Vulnerability contribution. and the Human Condition Initiative,16 Brown identifies three main objections to considers vulnerability to be at the core of the the use of ‘vulnerability’ as a classificatory term: legal subject. Significantly, she emphasizes firstly, it is paternalistic and offensive; secondly, cultural values when defining vulnerability it is closely aligned to technologies of social (see also Cooke 2017). According to Fineman, control; and lastly, labeling individuals or groups ‘vulnerability is inherent in life but autonomy as ‘vulnerable’ is exclusionary and potentially is not. The interpretation of vulnerability as stigmatizing. Tiia Sudenkaarne in this special issue a weakness is cultural and autonomy is a illuminates the stigmatizing situation in ethics as product of social policy’ (Fineman 2008: 23). challenged in queer people’s narratives. Kristiina She also argues that what is understood Brunila demonstrates how in sociology and as a ‘vulnerable subject’ must replace the philosophy studies in education, vulnerability has autonomous and independent subject asserted been studied as a policy imperative that turns the in the liberal tradition (Fineman 2008: 1–2). To notion into a psychoemotional and individualized richly theorize the concept of vulnerability is to problem and she shows how categorization as develop a more complex subject around which vulnerable has effects on those to whom it is to build social policy and law. ascribed (Brunila and Rossi 2018; Brunila et al In moral theory and ethics, vulnerability in this special issue). In his intersectional analysis has raised challenges regarding this very question. on racism in South Africa in this issue, Robert In this special issue, Susanne Uusitalo and Bernasconi describes how such categorization Tiia Sudenkaarne discuss this tension from the may overlook the very real vulnerability of some perspectives of addiction and queer ethics and others, who are thus put at even greater risk and practice, respectively. deprived of access to essential resources. Another prominent critical discussion of For several political thinkers, vulnerability is autonomous, sovereign, and rational agency was ‘made’ in regimes of power and consequently, dif launched by Alistair MacIntyre (1999). From ferently distributed among humans (Butler 2009; the perspective of human rights, Bryan Turner Ferrarese 2009). Vulnerability as a descriptive (2006) also questions the notion of autonomous term, or as a ‘type’, as Scambler (2019) puts it, is agency from the viewpoint of dependence and
suomen antropologi | volume 43 issue 3 autumn 2018 5 Marja-Liisa Honkasalo relationality, both of which he understands as existential, she understands vulnerability to be dimensions of vulnerability. They comprise differentially distributed globally through polit a necessary condition for agency that is possible ical regimes and politics. Besides vulnerability, not in solitude but by means of others, pivoting Butler uses the concept of precarity to theorize on the web of relations. Vulnerability as relational the ways vulnerability is unevenly distributed refers both to the constitution of agency and to across populations and to describe the social and human affectability. Following these precepts, political conditions under which lives become MacIntyre makes relationality the basis of any unlivable (2009: 25–26). What, in other words, ethical theory (see Aaltola on Simone Weil in this does vulnerability in the form of violence, issue). war, failing networks, poverty, imprisonment, starvation, exposure to illness, infirmity, and death Vulnerability, relationality, do to the people who are directly affected? Butler’s thoughts have inspired several scholars who work and politics with studies of violence. Satu Venäläinen’s article In addition to the ethical approaches to in this issue discusses women imprisoned for vulnerability, several political thinkers especially violent crimes. She describes how a relevant part in feminist philosophy and political theory of the culturally circulating understandings about emphasize vulnerability as more than ‘a good gender and violence reflects on ways women who sentiment’, as Estelle Ferrarese (2016: 149) have committed violent crimes are perceived and puts it. For these debates, the concern of the related to, and how their self-perceptions and possibility of a vulnerable political subject is at social orientations become shaped. This results stake. Despite of criticism, Ferrarese considers in othering discourses about women convicted possibilities for the use of the notion and of violent crimes as inhumanly deviant, which suggests vulnerability as a category with which particularly in the Finnish context entwines with to undo the world as it is. How vulnerability notions about ‘strong Finnish women’ that are is embedded in a web of political relations is effective both in denying women’s vulnerability in mostly neglected in social debates. Instead of relation to violence and in constituting positions an object of pity or perhaps a target of solely of victims as shameful. The dynamics of othering empathy, she considers vulnerability a mutual are linked to the trouble with vulnerability presupposition of autonomy for political theory. in Western thought due to the ways in which Ferrarese points to a critique of the core values its recognition goes against liberal-humanist in the ways of thinking of the actor and agency valuation of autonomy and agency. as lacking the body, something unbound and Considering vulnerability as a political solipsist. These critical ways of thinking are concept, at least two avenues of thoughts further developed in the discussions put forward are opened up. First, what does it mean to by Erinn Gilson (2014). Taika Bottner in this understand vulnerability politically, in terms special issues makes use of these ideas for the of power, resistance, and agency? Butler study of agency of chronically ill persons with (2016: 22–24) herself highlights vulnerability in dementia. relation to resistance and contentious politics. In For thinkers such as Judith Butler, vulnera feminist theories, vulnerability is opposed mainly bility as a political concept is a social and because it is considered to be dependency and political condition of life. Far from being merely victimhood, the antitheses of agency—because
suomen antropologi | volume 43 issue 3 autumn 2018 6 Marja-Liisa Honkasalo agency in e.g. feminist literature is considered How vulnerability to be incompatible with vulnerability (Martinez entered anthropology 2018; Mahmood 2005). In politics, people want to be regarded as agentic, as those who are acting Since its early history, vulnerability—understood but are not acted upon. However, vulnerability is in a general descriptive way as the condition an important part of the very meaning of political of the poor or the excluded—has been vital resistance; it is an embodied enactment. Second, for anthropological research. Durkheim (1951 Butler points out that vulnerability and resistance [1897]) defines anomie as a result of insufficient are not solely existential conditions of the body social integration, and as an indicator of what but aspects in a set of relations connecting the he calls the moral constitution of society. body to contentious politics, constituted by other Durkheim’s understanding of anomie has served bodies, processes, and political structures (Butler, as a kind of undercurrent for anthropological Gambetti and Sabsay 2016; see Lasczkowski research on vulnerability as a social condition of 2017). Seen from this perspective, vulnerability the excluded. However, vulnerability as such has as relational pierces through the body and also not been much theorized in the anthropological through the social and political conditions of life. corpus (about this, see Robbins 2013; Ortner During the last couple of decades, 2016). The other point in Durkheim’s vulnerability as a political notion has raised definition relevant for anthropology is morality. intense discussions. Papers on this theme were also Morality is something that has persisted in presented in the seminar ‘How does vulnerability anthropological thinking and has modified matter?’ that this special issue is based on. Some the description of the ethnographer’s position, authors argue that vulnerability animates political frequently defined as the advocate of the studied, critique and is, on many occasions, a powerful marginalized, peoples with the task of letting vehicle of social and political change. Tiia their voices be heard. In general, vulnerability Sudenkaarne, for example, refers to queer activism calls for benevolent acts and help. The role of in her article. Several current political reflections the ethnographer is also described as vulnerable on vulnerability touch upon what vulnerability (e.g. Behar 1996). Delineating ‘the moral turn’ does in terms of power, resistance, and agency. in anthropology, Fassin (2012: 3) makes the Some, like Butler (2004) and Laszczkowski claim that the discipline is morally committed, (2017, also 2019), are interested in what Butler at times explicitly: ‘Anthropologists, too, have calls the contentious politics of everyday life, often acted as moral agents. They have adopted a term that has implications for everyday life moral views and defended moral causes’ (see and the ways that people might live in a radically also Farmer 2004). restructured world. New questions are brought to the discussions, such as what does the affective Good but dark? power of vulnerability consist of? What is the power of political language of vulnerability that Vulnerability has been linked with morality in is so powerfully capable of touch, to contaminate a sense that is unique for Western anthropology and to mobilize acts (see Gilson 2018: 3)? compared with other social science disciplines. The link is interesting and worth being developed further. Today’s discussions of the ‘moral turn’ in anthropology—in contrast to
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the ‘ethical turn’, launched by Kapferer and reluctant to deal explicitly with ‘vulnerability’ Gold (eds. 2018)—follows the tracks of ‘the because of its character as a policy concept that suffering school’, prominent especially in US has little relevance in local usage or in discourse anthropology from the late 1980s, and launched outside of aid industries (Payne 2012). This also by the collaborative work of Arthur Kleinman clearly points to the Western governmentality (1997), Veena Das, and Stanley Cavell. In their underpinnings of vulnerability. edited volume Social Suffering (1996: 3), they A relational approach to vulnerability delineate their enterprise as ‘seeking to explore and precariosity that differs from the North suffering as a social experience in a stream of American discussions above, originates from enquiry’. They define suffering at three levels: the post-war Italian anthropology influenced by first, as an intersubjective experience and second, Gramsci (de Martino 2015 [1959]; 2005 [1961]). as an umbrella category that ties together Vulnerability may be provoked by illness, death, different kinds of human problems that create poverty, or other social or personal situations pain, distress, and other trials that people must where ‘one’s ability to maintain cultural processes undergo and endure (Kleinman 1997: 15). is threatened’ (de Martino 2015: 16). The risk of Third, suffering is also social, it has a social an existential dilemma touches upon the ways history and moral career. Morality, according in which we are human beings. On the basis to Kleinman, is a process of interaction that of his ethnographic research in southern Italy, results from an inter-human experience of the de Martino considered human life precarious Other’s suffering (ibid., 66). Defined in this because in so many situations the individual may way, social suffering is close to how Veena be in constant danger of losing his or her presence, Das (1996; 2007) approaches the relationship la presenza, the ability to be an active agent in the between social suffering and vulnerability. world and in history. In his studies on miseria in Vulnerability is, however, only rarely thematized southern Italy, de Martino focused his interest on by authors and social suffering is not explicitly human agency in vulnerable situations. Elements elaborated in relation to vulnerability in these and contributing factors may be played out in discussions (see also Jackson 1998; 2011; 2013; several everyday situations that threaten one’s Biehl 2005). In this special issue, Elisa Aaltola own agency, that is, one’s ability to act on the makes an important contribution by analyzing world rather than simply remaining a passive three Western cultural narratives of suffering, object of circumstances. Social interactions with portraying vulnerability through them. It is the aim of protecting a person’s tenuous being precisely through vulnerability that suffering in the world constitute a cultural core of human exists: ‘vulnerable creatures subject to forces agency. Hence, agency is something which does beyond our control also renders us prone to pain not proceed in isolation, but takes place in and anguish’. a society, in a relational cultural context where To conclude, in the anthropological enter there are already meaningful and intelligible prise, vulnerability has mainly been ‘good and modes of holding on to a world, having a grip dark’, a descriptive moral term for describing on it within social interactions. Vulnerability and the quality of life and the condition of the poor precariosity, understood in this way, are about and excluded17 (see Fassin 2012; Luhrmann being open to something, but the nature of this 2016). Anthropologists, especially those who something is only determined in concrete social work with global aid programs, have been circumstances.
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In several of his works de Martino has or political regulation and control. Within the thematized the relationship between the current governmental politics of austerity, the existential crisis of human beings in the social notion of vulnerability in policy language and political context of the precarious Italian appears to be connected to target funds. South as ‘the crisis of presence’. As a historian of Consequently, such programs focus not only on religion and an ethnographer, he has emphasized the most vulnerable, who perhaps would be in the role of religion as common social and cultural need of protection, but also on people with new practices and acts. Studying the practices of kinds of ‘psychosocial problems’, such as obesity, religious rituals in the everyday, de Martino does fatigue, sleep problems, or depression. not make a distinction between Catholicism, This kind of classification frequently popular religion, or magic (see Gramsci 1973; accomplishes labeling and unwanted identity, such especially Chapter III).18 In a world where as victimhood and consequently, identity politics one’s presence is not ultimately guaranteed, based on the definition from outside. Kristiina one is always in the process of constituting and Brunila and Leena-Maija Rossi (2018; also Brunila maintaining oneself together with others within et al. in this special issue) have argued that in a delicate balance. Meanwhile the world itself is terms of identity politics there is a tendency for entangled with the ongoing drama into which it to become a part of the ethos of vulnerability people are thrown, consisting of illness, poverty, in the neoliberal order. There is concern that in the threat of death, pain, and a sense of becoming the neoliberal order, identity politics is focusing overwhelmed. What is relevant for the relational on the individualized and inherent self by way of thinking about vulnerability is that agency referring to a specific psychological form and by a means the ability to fight for at least the minimal, therapeutic discourse of assumed psychoemotional namely a grip on the world. This grip is not vulnerability. Consequently, the position from something already there but is made and re-made which people get heard is established by recogniz continuously in intersubjective interactions with ing their psychoemotional vulnerabilities, injuries, other people in the human world. and emotional problems. In recent social and political situations, people tend increasingly to Vulnerability does claim rights, status, or privileges on the basis of victimized identity (see Koivunen, Kyrölä and In biopolitics19 and neoliberal governmentality, Ryberg 2018). The claims are increasingly based vulnerability has been increasingly deployed in on trauma or inherent vulnerability. The ethos of the classification and consequent management vulnerability plays an increasingly decisive role in and control of people. Characteristic for shaping e.g. social and welfare, education, and the classification is that it is not carried out policy health politics (Beddoe 2013; Brown 2011; by ‘vulnerable’ people themselves but by the Honkasalo 2017; see Brunila et al. in this special governmental institutions from the outside. issue). Vulnerabilizing problems, policies, and Consequently, as a group people who are practices inadvertently shape and limit subjectivity disabled, elderly, young, women, perhaps queer and agency (see Bottner in this special issue). This or unemployed—just to mention a few of the is why the authors argue that vulnerability needs a qualities that are made use of in the classification further analysis because neoliberal discourses work procedures—are considered vulnerable and, by disguising their real purposes, namely providing simultaneously, observable targets for societal legitimation for shaping people to become more
suomen antropologi | volume 43 issue 3 autumn 2018 9 Marja-Liisa Honkasalo governable and eventually more economically autism are examples of such recently established productive subjects. ‘human kinds’. Vulnerability and precariousness Furthermore, Bronwyn Davies et. al. (2005) can be added to the list of these ‘kinds’. Hacking’s have argued that the neoliberal discourse shifts idea is that instead of being ‘natural kinds’, what governments and their subjects towards thinking happens with ‘kinds’ is that they become moving of survival as an individual responsibility. This is targets because our investigations interact with a crucial element of resilience in the neoliberal them, and consequently change them. And since order and as a form of cruel optimism—the they are changed, they are not quite the same removal of dependence on the social fabric ‘kind’ as before. The target has moved, and this is combined with the dream of wealth and what he calls the ‘looping effect’. possessions for each individual who ‘gets it right’ What distinguishes human kinds from (see Berlant 2011). According to Davies et al. ‘natural kinds’, is that they include the results (2005), vulnerability is ideologically closely tied of the construction by the classificatory and to individual responsibility, which again is the scientific processes, i.e. the looping. As a result of central tenet of neoliberal subjectivity; workers are coming into existence through the social scientists’ disposable and there is no obligation on the part classifications, human kinds also change the of the ‘social fabric’ to take care of the disposed. people thus classified. Vulnerability is an example Therefore, the neoliberal subject becomes both par excellence of ‘classification, quantification, vulnerable to disposability and rejection by and intervention’. People who were previously those with economic power and thus, necessarily, considered ‘at risk’, are changed as a population competitive. The notion of social responsibility is and some of the new groups, such as migrants transformed into the individual’s responsibility and refugees, are not properly classified solely for one’s individual survival. This process is thus by being ‘at risk’. Risk as a technological term constructed not solely as moral, but as economic has gradually changed to vulnerability, and by survival (Davies et al. 2005: 9). that classificatory principle people are grouped The philosopher of science Ian Hacking, well together. Only rarely does academic research or known for his works on contemporary thought policy making ask about the respondents’ own and reasoning, has been consistently curious definitions of vulnerability. This in practice means about how science seeks to tame chance and its e.g. that according to several EU documents20 ways of creating ‘kinds of people that in a certain migrants are considered equally vulnerable by sense did not exist before’ (2006: 3). This is what both practitioners and researchers in a variety he calls ‘making up people’. Hacking’s ideas of ways. They are vulnerable by being at risk in are important in making sense of vulnerability, accessing services and resources, by being exposed and his thoughts have been further elaborated to exploitation on migration routes, by facing especially in the literature of governmentality political prosecution in their home countries, or (Rose 2007). through their specific bodily or psychological Hacking argues that today’s understanding conditions. of causal processes in human affairs relies Consequently, vulnerability as a tool of clas crucially on concepts of ‘human kinds’, which sification and consequent control and manage are a product of the modern social sciences, with ment of the population groups is effective their concern for classification, quantification, compared with its predecessor, risk. In the and intervention. Eating disorders, ADHD and following, I take an example of the change in
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Finnish elderly care from elderly care institutions In public discourse, policy-makers, media, to informal care at home. It is mainly relatives community groups, and social workers frequently who are in charge of informal home care, employ this problematic construct of vulnerable frequently without paid compensation. For groups in which elderly people, and those with governmental purposes, vulnerability as a concept disabilities are most likely to be characterized is important because of its ethical connotations as vulnerable and as a group that is constructed and ideological underpinnings, such as familism as in need of being spoken for. The relationship and individualism. In the previous large health between people and risk is redefined in a new care reform, which reduced psychiatric hospital paradigm in which people deemed vulnerable care (Helen (ed.) 2011; Alanko 2017) in Finland, are considered by professionals unable to manage the arguments for elderly care at home were the uncertainties of life (Furedi 2003). Help to based on the very same persuasive ‘language vulnerable people includes the assumption of the of vulnerability’, such as home, intimacy, and lack of their capacity which provides the means by family—even though it was well known that which to discipline and control them. after years spent in hospital, or even before that, Vulnerability in the context of neoliberal patients did not necessarily have any family. governmentality is hardly comprehensible without One side of the benefits of the categorization its relationship to resilience, the ‘equivalent but by vulnerability is the persuasive vocabulary opposite concept’. Originating from the same of softness and benevolence compared to the cluster as vulnerability but with a strong impact technical language of risk. The other side is of development psychology, resilience is about the economic, that of saving and cutting the public quality of the boundary but from the perspective budget. The vulnerable are a proper target of of adaptability, strength and the ability to ‘bounce political and economic actions. The justification back’, to learn and develop (e.g. Garmezy 1971; of the governmental procedures is primarily Holling 1973; Joseph 2013). Resilience describes economic, and vulnerability is economically the capacity to survive and withstand but also to productive. The classification of the elderly as renew after a change or a catastrophe. All of the vulnerable has brought about a change in Finnish dimensions of resilience are considered important elderly care and has led to the informal, home- for the society’s adaptation to crises, mitigating based, and only partly paid care provided by disasters, and for governing the society that is relatives. The change is productive in terms of supposed to face threats.22 governmental savings. It is ironic to note that Societal and political trends put forward the sum total, 2.8 billion Euros for care of the in the governmentality debates give some elderly, is close to the sum that is to be cut in important perspectives to the question of what the current social and welfare reform (Kehusmaa vulnerability does, or actually to the question of 2014).21 As Hacking would put it, being classified what vulnerability and resilience do. Resilience as vulnerable a ‘wholly new kind of person came is fast becoming the organizing principle in into being’. The elderly, classified as vulnerable, contemporary political life, Tapio Juntunen and are not the same ‘kind of people’ as they were Ari-Elmeri Hyvönen (2014: 195 [italics in the before. Similarly, the governmental budget, now original]) argue. According to them, the concern 2.8 billion Euros lighter, is no longer the same is about the detrimental effects that the meaning health care budget. of resilience has on active citizenship and
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democratic politics. Like several other notions from anthropological studies in illness and that originate from natural sciences, resilience critical medical anthropology,23 add some new also carries with itself qualities that gain new perspectives to those in ethics and feminist meaning when applied to society. Resilience studies already mentioned earlier. Illness originates from notions such as adaptation and provides an important contextual site for self-organizing properties which, as applied theorizing agency. The ill patient’s agency is to society, do not recognize some of its most agency, as Annemarie Mol puts it (2008: 28) important notions, such as social change or power and, according to Fineman (2008), what is (Olsson et al. 2015: 5). The emphasis is on the understood as a vulnerable subject, must be adaptable and highly autonomous resilient subject taken seriously as the core of the legal subject. and on the new social morphology where societies In this special issue, Bottner in her analysis of and life itself are defined by inescapable crises and people with dementia carefully demonstrates catastrophes. Crises are regarded as unavoidable how detailed ethnographic studies are able and, as such, a force that promotes thriving in to open up how a variety of forms of agency society. Several political scientists have presented emerge from this specific cultural context. that resilience should be considered constructive For most authors in this special issue, and a promoter of societal strengthening. Brad vulnerability is a notion that challenges ways Evans and Julian Reid (2015: 155–157) delineate of defining agency as sovereign and rational, as a new ontology of vulnerability that is based on a vehicle for autonomy and individual free choice. threat, endangerment, and insecurity. Violence The universalizing assumptions of agency render and catastrophic events are considered necessary people vulnerable because they shape a norm, events in society, a vehicle for people to develop which runs through legal and ethical theories and responsiveness to further catastrophes. Resilience practices, as Uusitalo and Sudenkaarne highlight, appears as a form of immunization because as well as in the care of the elderly in Bottner’s what societies and citizens do is a process of article. In addition, in health and welfare policy internalizing catastrophic events, and this creates in most European countries, public services have new epistemic communities that are more already been becoming increasingly organized aware of their vulnerabilities. A shared sense following consumerist principles, which of vulnerability forces people to become active emphasize service users’ autonomous agency and participants in the de-politicization process of their rights and abilities to make choices between society. Although this scenario is debated (e.g. different service providers. This ‘agenda of choice’ Schott 2013), it fits well with several critical (Leppo and Perälä 2009; 2017), or ‘freedom of views presented elsewhere in biopolitics and choice’ (National Institute for Health and Welfare governmentality research. 2019) as it is put also in the current Finnish health and social policy debates, is considered Vulnerable agency to benefit the state through more efficient and cheaper service provision and give citizens a In the following, I will briefly discuss vulnera more active role as ‘agency consumers’ of public bility as both a cultural critique of and a services. There are, however, hidden moral and theoretical challenge to the notion of agency ethical problems embedded in discussions about as it is applied in social sciences and most of patients as consumers and experts in health all in anthropology. These debates, originating markets. The idea of patients’ expertise is linked
suomen antropologi | volume 43 issue 3 autumn 2018 12 Marja-Liisa Honkasalo to an idealized picture of the individual agency as well as with regard to the availability of social of an invulnerable consumer being in control of and material resources. The link between agency one’s action and of vulnerable life situations as and the myriad of worldly acts still remains matters of rational choice. In addition, in these unravelled in the bulk of anthropological research. policy documents some people are considered In ethnographic research, the abstract, to ‘have’ agency, others are not. The logic of the rational and free-floating concept of agency does normative assumption is dichotomous: active not capture the multiple modes and ambiguous agency is good, absence of agency is bad. conditions of agency that are heightened in the The spread of the idea of autonomous and contexts, which people themselves define as sovereign individual agency is derived from vulnerable. How does one capture different modes a sociological tradition that has become tangled of agency in life situations where sovereignty, in the ‘jargon of autonomy’ (Sulkunen 2009). autonomy or individuality quite simply are Through a dynamics of this jargon, mediated inappropriate terms? How does one develop by medical efforts to cure and by ‘the agenda of alternative concepts for social and anthropological choice’, society increasingly holds individuals theory, ones that do not suffer from futile responsible for their health (Rose 1996; Leppo abstraction, yet still maintain analytical power? and Perälä 2017). However, the agenda fails Vulnerability has the strength of mirroring the to explain how people actually live with illness problems and shortcomings of individual agency (Leppo and Perälä 2017; 2009; Honkasalo 2008; in everyday life because for ethnographic analysis, 2009). In contemporary society and in present- vulnerability shapes a vital contextual site for its day forms of governance, the patients’ agency theorizing. This is how Desjarlais (1997: 204– and their freedom of choice are enabled by social 205) puts it in his ethnography among homeless structures and everyday life as well as by webs men in a shelter in Massachusetts. A variety of of implementations in the form of medications, forms of agency emerge from this specific cultural technological devices, and therapeutic and peer context. Agency is not ontologically prior to support practices. context but arises from the social, political, and In contexts such as illness, agency is far from cultural dynamics of a specific time and place being clear, rational, or individual. It emerges (see also Honkasalo 2008; 2009; Honkasalo and in and through interaction rather than being a Tuominen 2014). These thoughts of vulnerability given. Agency, hence, does not remain abstract are important: they bring to the fore Arendt’s but is enabled as real-life, worldly24 action and idea of the actor, as both sufferer and doer in engagement with given circumstances, whether worldly space. Beginning from the conditions getting out of bed, cooking a meal, seeking which enable agency would be a path to the professional help, talking to a friend, fighting an multiplicity of agency in addition to a notion that addiction, taking prescribed medications, coming solely emphasizes control or intentionality. In her to terms with technological devices within one’s recent work, Sharon Krause (2015), a researcher body, or coping with stigma. In the context of in political science, highlights the importance illness and suffering, agency perhaps simply eludes of recognizing the ways people are neither free- from one’s control, becomes merely enduring, choicers nor sovereign as crucial conditions for something that seems ‘passive’ (Honkasalo 2013; agency and of analyses of the ways in which they Mahmood 2005). What is counted as agency is are thwarted. different in different physical and mental ailments,
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Concluding remarks Beyond a pure notion but merely considered a dispositif,27 vulnerability indicates the quality How vulnerability matters is the theme of the of boundaries ‘in a thoroughly heterogeneous special issue. As laid down by the authors, it ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, matters in several ways. (…) regulatory decisions—the said as much as the Besides an existential human condition, unsaid’ (Foucault 1980: 194). vulnerability in neoliberal societies is related to I think that much of the enigma of something commonly considered negative: with vulnerability can be illuminated as a dispositif, ‘a weakness, dependency, suffering, or identity formation that has its major function at a given practices with concomitant social control. As historical moment that of responding to an urgent a policy imperative, vulnerability has gained an need (emphasis in the original)’. In addition to the instrumental meaning that is a pale and narrow affective power of vulnerability, the other reason version compared to its existential and ethical for its enormous popularity is precisely the urgent origins. A corresponding change has also come need to govern populations in an era of insecurity about with some other notions, such as welfare and threat. and well-being and more recently, with the In ethnographic research, the main problem arts.25 Growing societal discussions highlight with vulnerability consists of the multiplicity of the meaning and importance of arts and artistic meanings attached to the notion along its path practices in an instrumental way, counted by their from the natural sciences, philosophy, ethics, estimated well-being or health effects. and politics to the studies of cultures, and to the Yet, in this special issue, through the lens inquiries into agency, violence, racism, and power of relationality, vulnerability is captured as an as carried out in this special issue. As the concept opening up to something unexpected that matters of culture, vulnerability covers almost everything in life (Lecourt 2002 [1998]). Vulnerability affects and due to its malleability, fits almost anything. and effects and this is perhaps one reason for the This can be confusing and, unless carefully enormous popularity of the notion; it forms the analyzed, vulnerability may cause many problems lever between suffering and flourishing, as Martha for concrete ethnographic research. Nussbaum (2001) puts it, in both—or all— Yet, as several contributions on vulnerability directions. Understood in this sense, vulnerability argue, vulnerability matters as a challenge and is about openness to something but the nature a possibility. Juxtaposing the notions of process, of this something is only determined in concrete practice, experience, identity, or the instigator social circumstances (Gilson 2018: 4). It is about of affect, vulnerability is able to surpass the processuality and, ethnographically speaking, possibilities provided by many other suggested what matters are vulnerabilities in a plural form.26 notion. One contribution of this special issue is to add More than most notions, vulnerability pro to the discussions the potential of vulnerability vides a possibility to study the subtle meanings to transform and be transformed in contextual and qualities of boundaries. In today’s social interactions. and political life, this is what is urgently needed. In this introduction, I have tracked some Resilience is one but problematic attempt of the problems and possibilities caused by the to contribute to this; defense, protection or stickiness of the notion along its travel through prevention are simply not enough in the present several intellectual and managerial deployments. day global situation. Ethically, the emphasis on
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the porousness of boundaries and how to protect s3.amazonaws.com/rdcms-aaa/files/production/ them are perhaps more important than ever. public/FileDownloads/pdfs/cmtes/commissions/ upload/GCCTF-Changing-the-Atmosphere. pdf.
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limited circumstances bears the seed of the same 22 The interest in resilience has increased remarkably boundlessness, because one deed, and sometimes after 9/11 and the launch of the war against one word, suffices to change every constellation’ terrorism. (Arendt 1958: 190). 23 The research project ‘Vulnerable agency’ (SA 13 Arendt concludes Vita Activa by stating (1958: 259220; see Honkasalo n.d.) has its ethnograph 390): ‘Unfortunately, and contrary to what is ical focus on the conditions of human agency— currently assumed about the proverbial ivory not as an independent and autonomous entity tower independence of thinkers, no other human as it is defined in contemporary ethical, social, capacity is so vulnerable, and it is in fact far easier and health policies but as an actor, tied with and to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to conditioned by a web of social, political, and think’. existential circumstances. They connect ill people 14 According to Watts and Bohle (1993), the and their care-takers with social interactions, be concept of vulnerability was adopted and they at home or at hospital. What is called agency, developed further by development researchers autonomy, and sovereignty is also conditioned by and poverty analysts. From their point of view, the clinical and policy decisions. the concept encompasses more than merely 24 instead of ‘agency’ , Arendt (1958) uses of ’wordly observing available resources, such as disposable action’ (for a nuanced analysis, see Gambetti income. It also examines in what ways external 2016). strains like storms, floods, and droughts make 25 The vicissitudes of these notions need further scarcity and distribution of resources a problem. research. The current instrumental use of the In more abstract terms, vulnerability means being arts and artistic practices as a vehicle for health exposed to external stress factors that cannot be improvement and well-being has increased (see overcome with the help of the resources available. e.g. Sosiaali- ja terveysministeriö 2015; Arts 15 Also the SANT/FAS conference ‘Vulnerabilities’, Council England 2014. Uppsala, Sweden 2018. 26 About Vulnerabilities, see the Swedish Anthro 16 Vulnerability and the Human Condition (n.d.). pological Association and Finnish Anthropolog 17 In addition, the field workers themselves describe ical Society (2018) conference Vulnerabilities. their position as vulnerable (see e.g. Behar 1996). 27 I am grateful to Kristiina Brunila for our discus 18 Italian folklore research is based on a tradition sion about the concept of dispositive. I refer to of its own. The roots are from the history of Foucault’s notion according to his thinking in religion and phenomenological philosophy but Power/Knowledge (1980) and Discipline and also the Marxist, and notably Gramscian, way of Punish (1991 [1975]). interpreting folk life. 19 Foucault (1988) also discusses biopolitics as the conceptual condition of racism and References Nazism; Agamben (1998) pairs biopolitics with thanatopolitics—to him, the essence of sovereign Adger, Neil 2000. Social Vulnerability to Climate power is the power to let live or let die. In this Change and Extremes in Coastal Vietnam. World way how to classify the vulnerability of others is Development 27 (2): 249–296. very central to power. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(98)00136-3. 20 See Médecins du Monde (n.d.). Agamben, Giorgio 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign https://mdmeuroblog.wordpress.com/ Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University 21 Kehusmaa, ibid. In Finland the homes of elderly Press. people in need of medical assistance have become hybrids of a home and a sort of medical care unit. Ahmed, Sara 2014. Cultural Politics of Emotion. The relationship of such elderly people with their London: Routledge. spouses has changed from being one of a family relationship to a dependence on care relationship. Alanko, Anna 2017. Improving Mental Health Care. In this context, a ‘new kind of person’ is also one Finnish Mental Health Policy Rationale in the Era of who belongs to the unpaid group of ‘informal Dehospitalisation. PhD thesis. Helsinki: University of care provided by family and relatives’ (Honkasalo Helsinki. 2017). http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-51-3276-5.
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Antonovski, Aron 1979. Health, Stress and Coping: Brunila, Kristiina 2017. Ethos of Vulnerability New Perspectives on Mental and Physical Well-being. and the Changes in the Education System San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. in the Neoliberal Era. Keynote lecture. ‘How Does Vulnerability Matter?’ Seminar. Helsinki, Arendt, Hannah 1958. The Human Condition. 30 November–1 December. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Brunila, Kristiina and Maija-Leena Rossi 2018. Arts Council England 2014. The Value of Arts and Identity Politics, the Ethos of Vulnerability, and Culture to People and Society: An Evidence Review. Education. Educational Philosophy and Theory 50 (3): Manchester: Arts Council of England. https://www. 287–298. artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/ https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1343115. Value_arts_culture_evidence_review.pdf.
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