Resilient life in neoliberal ruins

Organised by

• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
• Department of Political and Social Sciences

The academic disciplines of International Relations and Politics have so far been largely critical of the resilience discourse. Whether they see it as neoliberal, postliberal, or biopolitical, scholars have focused on resilience's stifling effects on the subject. This event will present a paper that takes issue with one-sided engagement of resilience by trying to work out its agential potential in the face of pervasive biopolitics and governmentality. Specifically, it looks at popular science self-help literature to explore the positive aspects of resilient agency often neglected in the academic debate. While arguments about biopolitics rightly point out the depoliticising effects of resilience, this paper demonstrates how resilience discourse moves emancipatory agency inward, to within the subject. Avenues for collective action are shut down, while the resilient subject's capacity for introspection, adaptation and self-transformation are enhanced.

The Zoom link will be sent upon registration.