Vulnus - by Gamze Hakverdi (Paperback)

About the Book

Vulnus: On Vulnerability examines vulnerability as a relational openness to the Other, in tension with the ideal of invulnerability. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Rome and Ankara, it shows how vulnerability is socially negotiated through an intertwined gaze-voice dynamic and shaped by regimes of visibility.

Book Synopsis

Vulnus: On Vulnerability examines vulnerability as a constitutive openness to being affected by the Other, situating it in dialogue with its cultural counter-image: the invulnerable Ideal. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Rome (Italy) and Ankara (Türkiye), the book argues that vulnerability is not merely an inner, individual condition but a negotiated position produced through an intertwined gaze-voice assemblage. Bringing psychoanalytic theory into sustained conversation with participants' narratives, it maps the "fault lines" along which embodied differences and social statuses become charged with meaning, generating a surplus/deficit economy in which subjects are repeatedly positioned on a scale of "too much" or "not enough." The book addresses contemporary regimes of visibility by connecting lived narratives, cultural images, and theoretical analysis, and invites readers to rethink vulnerability as a relational condition that can open an ethics of seeing and listening beyond phantasmatic ideals.

Review Quotes

The book successfully renders a highly abstract, slippery, and hard-to-define psychic state empirically discussable. A further methodological strength lies in its research techniques: against the backdrop of the Other's gaze and voice that call the subject toward the ideal, the author makes the optical and auditory dimensions of vulnerability visible through the participants' active involvement.--Gülay Acar Göktepe, Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University (Türkiye), in Moment Journal, 2022

About the Author

Dr. Gamze Hakverdi holds a PhD (2016) in Communication Sciences from Ankara University (Türkiye) and worked as a Research Assistant at the Faculty of Communication, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Türkiye, from 2007 to 2017. Her research lies at the intersection of communication and cultural studies, and her doctoral work brought Lacanian psychoanalysis into dialogue with ethnographic fieldwork conducted between Rome (Italy) and Ankara (Türkiye). She is the author of two books in Turkish: Vulnus: Kırılganlık Üzerine (Metis, 2021; 2nd ed. 2022), based on her doctoral dissertation, and Su, Sis ve Toprak: Yeni Türk Sinemasının Film-İmgeleri (Dipnot, 2013), developed from her master's thesis on recurrent cinematic images in contemporary Turkish cinema. She also published articles in peer-reviewed journals, most recently in Sociologia: Problemas e Práticas (2025). She completed a second master's degree in the Child Studies Program at Linköping University (Sweden), extending her interdisciplinary focus on childhood sociology.