Politics, justice and the vulnerable subject: the contribution of feminist thought
| Autor | Brunella Casalini |
| Cargo | Prof. University of Florence, Italy |
| Páginas | 15-29 |
Periódico do Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre Gênero e Direito
Centro de Ciências Jurídicas - Universidade Federal da Paraíba
V. 5 - Nº 03 - Ano 2016 International Journal
ISSN | 2179-7137 | http://periodicos.ufpb.br/ojs2/index.php/ged/index
15
DOI: 10.18351/2179-7137/ged.v5n3p15-29
POLITICS, JUSTICE AND THE VULNERABLE SUBJECT:
THE CONTRIBUTION OF FEMINIST THOUGHT
Brunella
Ca
s
alini
1
Abstract: The present article argues that the
main contribution of contemporary feminist
theory on vulnerability stems from the
distinction of two possible kinds of
vulnerability: an ontological vulnerability and a
vulnerability linked to various processes (social,
cultural, economic and juridical) of
vulnerabilisation. This contribution is not
limited to the critical and deconstructive level.
As a positive proposal, it advances in the
direction of an individual which, recovering its
own relational, embodied, "fleshy" and situated
dimension, abandons the illusion of its own
sovereignty, accepts its vulnerability like an
opening up to others, and thus also accepts the
responsibility for an open and democratic
dialogue and the need for institutions inspired
by an "enabling" conception of justice (cf.
Young 1990).
Keywords: vulnerability, precarity, privilege
of ignorance, epistemic responsibility, enabling
justice.
Introduction
Different contemporary feminist
theoretical approaches, particularly the care
1 Prof. University of Florence, Italy.
mail: brunella.casalini@unifi.it.
ethics of Kittay (1998) and Tronto (1993;
2013), studies on precarity (Butler, 2006; 2009;
2015), the “social flesh” approach of Carol
Bacchi an d Chris Beasley (2002; 2004; 2012),
the philosophy of the law of Martha Fineman
(2008), the ecofeminism of authors like Val
Plumwood (2002) and Stacy Alaimo (2009),
have focused their attention on the subject of
vulnerability. This thought moves on two
separate yet closely interrelated fronts (see, in
particular, Gilson, 2013). On the one hand,
we have the unveiling of forms of
vulnerabilisation, of “precarity” ( Butler,
200 9), o r o f “ pathogeni c v ul ne ra bi lity”
(Mackenzie, 2014), socially induced to
maintain the current hierarchies of power that
exist among the various social groups, focusing
attention on the methods used to produce them
and also on the way in which they have changed
over recent decades due to globalisation and the
advent of neoliberal politics. In this direction,
especially through criticism of modern
rationalism and liberal ontology, they help us
understand the reasons why what Martha
Fineman calls the “myth of autonomy”
(Fineman, 2004) is so hard to die, so resistant
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