Common Bodies: the ethics of precarity politics. Issue 2 (2nd April 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cooper, Julia
• Is Part Of: Angelaki. Volume 21:Issue 2(2016)
• Page Start: 3
• Page End: 15
• Publication Date: 2016-04-02
• Subjects: ethics -- precarity -- melancholy -- grief -- sociality; Literature -- Criticism and interpretation -- Periodicals; Philosophy -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals; 100
• DOI: 10.1080/0969725X.2016.1182717
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0969-725X

Abstract

Abstract: The politics of precarity have emerged on the contemporary scene of critical theory with great social force in recent years. This paper looks at the risks and obstacles of positing precariousness and vulnerability as the basis of a universal ethics while also arguing for the socially transformative potential of such a model. More broadly, it considers the crucial question of what stands in the way of human relation and ethical life in an age of neoliberalism and biopolitics, and posits an ethics of resemblance grounded in the commonality of flesh and in the at once singular and universal experience of loss.