Vulnerability is not only a shared basic condition, but also a condition of potential. In the context of disasters and crises, the concept of vulnerability is frequently used to portray individuals and groups as ‘weak’, ‘threatened’, and ‘in need of help’. Occasionally, though, a shift occurs and the ‘threatened’—and therefore usually the pitied—become those who are feared and hated, that is, they become a ‘threat’. This paper explores how apparently incompatible discursive regimes of ‘threatened’ and ‘threat’ intertwine, merge, and feed upon each other, and how vulnerability can be and is consequently securitised. It demonstrates that too often the freedoms and opportunities prescribed by the neoliberal state are impossible to actualise when ‘normality’ and hence ‘otherness’ are also defined by the state, where people are first and foremost subjects of a global market. These considerations are critical if we are truly to reduce vulnerabilisation by focusing on justice.

中文翻译：

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从怜悯到恐惧：安全作为（再）产生脆弱性的机制

脆弱性既是共同的基本条件，也是潜在的条件。在灾难和危机的背景下，脆弱性的概念经常被用来将个人和群体描述为“软弱”、“受到威胁”和“需要帮助”。然而，偶尔会发生转变，“受到威胁的”——因此通常是可怜的——变成了令人恐惧和憎恨的人，也就是说，他们变成了“威胁”。本文探讨了“受威胁”和“威胁”这两个明显不相容的话语体系是如何交织、融合并相互滋生的，以及脆弱性如何能够并因此被安全化。它表明，当“常态”和“差异性”也被国家定义时，新自由主义国家规定的自由和机会往往无法实现，人是全球市场的首要主体。如果我们真的要通过关注正义来减少脆弱性，这些考虑是至关重要的。