Observing the “Observed Vulnerability”: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This paper advances the concept of “observed vulnerability”, which is based on the inherent power dynamics within observer-observed relationships. We investigate the observed vulnerability of domestic migrant workers in India in the context of COVID-19 lockdowns, characterized by severe health, food, income, and shelter insecurity. Using a process approach, we conducted a critical discourse analysis on migrant workers’ media representations during the lockdowns. Drawing on Stuart Hall's theory of representation and situating the plight of migrant workers within the dominant neoliberal governance regime, our findings reveal how discourse surrounding migrant workers’ vulnerability generated regimes of representation that either ignored the vulnerable, excluded them from the marketplace, criminalized and subjected them to state violence, or reinforced existing hierarchies by distancing the vulnerable from the observer through the politics of pity. We conceptualize observed vulnerability as a discursive practice that connects the macro-level processes to the micro-level experiences and practices through reiterative processes of normalizing and homogenizing representations.