Vulnerability : Real, Imagined, and Displayed Fragility in Language and Society

Abstract

This collection presents studies on a wide range of discursive positions marked by vulnerability and investigates the functions of (self-)positioning actors as vulnerable in contemporary social discourses. As a phenomenon that manifests itself in different social arenas, vulnerable positions and instances of (self-)positioning indicate various crisis situations on a broad spectrum of phenomena, of manifestations and implications. Starting from the assumption that vulnerable (self-)positioning and stance-taking is manifested at the level of discursive practices, performative processes and material achievements, the contributors describe a series of mechanisms of staging vulnerability in a wide range of manifestations: among them physical, psychological, social, sexual and gender, linguistic, and institutional vulnerability.