© Philosophy Today, Volume 64, Issue 3 (Summer 2020). ISSN 0031-8256 599–616 Philosophy Today DOI: 10.5840/philtoday2020105350 Those Who Gather in the Streets: Butler’s Vulnerable Political Subjects MIRI ROZMARIN Abstract: Tis article examines the notion of vulnerable political subjectivity in Judith Butler’s theory of vulnerability. Te paper aims to contribute to critical discussions of Butler’s political theory by ofering an account of how the ontological, ethical, and political aspects of vulnerability shape political subjectivity in her work. Te frst part of the paper analyzes the features of vulnerable political subjects. Te second part critically assesses to what extent Butler ofers an alternative to the association of vulnerability with a damaged capability to act politically. Te third part argues that Butler ofers only a partial account of vulnerability as a transformative desire, which is crucial to explaining how and under what conditions vulnerability inspires subjects to engage politically with the conditions that shape their precarity or the precarity of others. Key words: vulnerability, political subjectivity, protest, resistance, Judith Butler We know that those gather on the street or in public domains where police are present are always at risk of detention and arrest, but also forcible handling, and even death. (Butler 2016: 12) 1. Introduction O ver the past ffeen years, Judith Butler has presented a distinctive and highly infuential account of vulnerability as a basis for ethics and political theory. Butler’s theory of vulnerability aims to chal- lenge the normative political discourse of contemporary bordered neoliberal culture and the image of the subject it assumes: a proactive, autonomous subject whose boundaries, continuity, and self-regulation are taken as unquestionable