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Vulnerable resilience: the politics of vulnerability as a self-improvement discourse

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  • Ciccone, Vanessa

Abstract

Resilience has become a central aspect of self-improvement within neoliberal societies. In the present essay, I draw from recent critical scholarship on resilience to investigate vulnerability as an emergent self-improvement discourse. I analyse two popularised videos that profile Brené Brown, a figurehead of vulnerability as a means of resilience-building. I argue that these videos circulate ideas about how to enact “vulnerability,” acting as powerful pedagogical resources that instruct subjects to turn within and work on themselves. Although practicing vulnerability may lead to certain social rewards, it compels subjects to orient their psychic lives toward an individuating sense of self, bringing a myriad of consequences. Below, I assess what is at stake when vulnerability is mobilised as a relational tool located within resilience.

Suggested Citation

  • Ciccone, Vanessa, 2020. "Vulnerable resilience: the politics of vulnerability as a self-improvement discourse," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 106701, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:106701
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/106701/
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rosalind Gill & Shani Orgad, 2018. "The Amazing Bounce-Backable Woman: Resilience and the Psychological Turn in Neoliberalism," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 23(2), pages 477-495, June.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    vulnerability; resilience; self-improvement; new-liberalism; subjectivity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

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