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.
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.