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Precarious Lives / Vies Précaires: Introduction

The terms “précaire” and “précarité” have gained a consequential place in French and Francophone discourse that they may lack in the anglophone world, and their specificity deserves to be highlighted here. The topic as we imagined it shares some similarities with the concept of “precarious life” in the 2004 book of that title by Judith Butler, cited by several authors included in this volume. The scope of both the conference and this special issue, however, is wider, in many ways, in conceptual, geographical, and temporal scope than the post-9/11 world that is the focus of Butler’s writing. We also hoped to focus on the individual existences as they are affected by larger societal currents.