The challenges of vulnerability

This book proposes an aggregative conception of vulnerability that captures the ways in which an individual experiences different aspects of disadvantage connected with human dependence on the other, the unpredictability and the irreversibility of action. This conceptualization provides a new framework for understanding individual experience of, and resilience to, vulnerability and promotes the need to find remedies for exposure to involuntary dependence, the unsecured future and the painful past. By surveying a range of studies focusing on the effectiveness of techniques employed by individuals, groups and the global community to reduce levels of vulnerability, each chapter highlights the most successful strategies to mitigate the specific forms of vulnerability. The book argues that the recognition of vulnerability as the focal point for socio-economic problems can produce important knowledge that can revitalize social imagination, inform public debates and enrich social policies conducive to developing wider forms of solidarity, security and cooperation.