Abstract
Does the critical discourse about resilience reiterate the problematic dichotomy between suffering and agency that the concept of resilience inscribes? In this discussion piece, I engage with Brad Evans' and Julian Reid's reflections on resilience in a recent issue of this journal. Although I share with Evans and Reid a normative critique of the concept of resilience, I am cautious about their ontological critique of vulnerability and am critical of their identification of finitude with learning how to die – a position which overlooks the significance of natality. Rather than arguing that vulnerability precludes political transformation as Evans and Reid do or that vulnerability enables political coalition as in Judith Butler's account of precarity, one should ask: how is vulnerability framed? I argue for framing vulnerability through a critical theory of the victim which explores the interconnections between injurability and agency, rather than treating them as oppositional terms.
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