“Vulnerable” resilience: the politics of vulnerability as a self-improvement discourse

ABSTRACT

Resilience has become a central aspect of self-improvement within neoliberal societies. In the present essay, I draw from recent critical scholarship on resilience to investigate vulnerability as an emergent self-improvement discourse. I analyse two popularised videos that profile Brené Brown, a figurehead of vulnerability as a means of resilience-building. I argue that these videos circulate ideas about how to enact “vulnerability,” acting as powerful pedagogical resources that instruct subjects to turn within and work on themselves. Although practicing vulnerability may lead to certain social rewards, it compels subjects to orient their psychic lives toward an individuating sense of self, bringing a myriad of consequences. Below, I assess what is at stake when vulnerability is mobilised as a relational tool located within resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• vulnerability
• resilience
• self-improvement
• neoliberalism
• subjectivity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Brown’s TEDx Talk has over 49,391,360 views. Netflix viewing numbers are unavailable.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vanessa Ciccone

Vanessa Ciccone is a doctoral researcher at the London School of Economics’ Department of Media and Communications. Her research focuses on subjectivity, emotion management, and power in workplace and other professional settings of the platform-based technology sector. She has additionally researched and written on labour in the creative and cultural industries, policy, and the political economy of media.