I will investigate vulnerability as a possibility of mobilization. In political thought, this possibility is present in a broad scale of competing rhetorics. From the inherent abilities of enlightenment individualism, to the conservative order of need and guiding benevolence and the Marxist history of class conflict, vulnerability is seen as an inauguration of opportunities for the wretched of the earth. In what might be shorthanded as the questioning of the subject in recent critical theory, the question of how and if vulnerability might be understood as a mobilizing potential remains open. Contemporary transatlantic populism is also insisting on the vulnerability of constituents as an untapped source of political energy.
Out of the many possible venues of approach to this problem, I will pay particular attention to strategic rationality as an equipment for mobilization. Strategy is in this context the mapping of vulnerabilities in order to open theoretical avenues for action and reconsideration of the self. My research will determine possible places for responsibility and ethics in situations like these.
Contact: erik.hallstensson@filosofi.uu.se
