Guest Speaker Dr Sophie Bourgault

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE SPEAKER SERIES

Feminist care ethics and the discourse of resilience

Sophie Bourgault (University of Ottawa)

Thursday, February 8, 2024

3:00-5:00pm

Hall Building, Room H-1220

In the last decade, several political scientists have expressed concerns about resilience discourse – a discourse that is said to irresponsibly celebrate the ability of individuals to “bounce back” or “carry on” after a crisis. Some have argued that the buzzword “resilience” is too conveniently used by neoliberal governments to promote self-care or to pass on to individuals blame for deep structural inequalities. This has led some critics to call for a moratorium on the use of the term resilience. Bourgault proposes a different response to contemporary resilience discourse: namely, a reappropriation of the term. The paper thus offers a feminist model of resilience, which foregrounds its relational character, its inseparability from shared public spaces, and its ties to a willingness to be “inconvenienced by others” (Lauren Berlant, 2022). While the paper chiefly draws on feminist care ethics, it also makes a brief foray into psychology research in order to draw the contours of a model of careful resilience.

Sophie Bourgault is an Associate Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa.