Vulnerability, violence and politics

Abstract

This article analyzes the vocabulary used in the discourse of public policies that conceives vulnerability of certain sectors of the population as a natural condition of individuals or of groups, thus producing what it merely intends to describe. This vocabulary, which opposes vulnerability to violence, is heir to western philosophical and political tradition. Here we also point out some of the moments in that tradition that have contributed to the construction of these figures of vulnerability. We hold that it is necessary to submit them to a critical examination, in order to give rise to the visibility of the practices that make the bodies vulnerable and that contribute to the prosecution of the damage to which they are subjected. It also defends the possibility of political resistance to vulnerability.