ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the identitarian imposition of vulnerability: that is, it explores how vulnerability is attached to certain medical and legal categories of identity. The scene's critique of humanitarianism is reversed via the film's representation of vulnerability in a way that highlights the need for humanitarian help. One of the ethico-political determinations of vulnerability appears in the institutional guidelines for biomedical research. Ulrich Beck and Martha Fineman present some contrasting perspectives on identity and vulnerability. Fineman presents vulnerability as the universal human condition; thus policies and special measures to prevent discrimination based on minority identity become undesirable, producing only division and harmful competition. According to the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects, the vulnerable groups are determined by age, disability, identity categories, economic status, and operational power relations. Becoming vulnerable by stripping away all prostheses was their primary method of advocating for their legal entitlement to human rights.
