From pity to fear: security as a mechanism for (re)production of vulnerability

Chmutina, Ksenia; Meding, Jason von; Williams, Darien Alexander; Vickery, Jamie; Purdum, J. Carlee

doi:10.1111/disa.12568

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…This line of enquiry mirrors Mark Fisher’s (2009, p. 14) questions on poverty: in the context of anti-capitalist demands within hyper-corporate events such as Live 8, he asks, “who is it who actually wants poverty?” In this sense, questions about the politics of disasters in relation to agency and imagination gain significance. If those actors who create vulnerability or benefit from it are not identified and held to account, vulnerability analyses will continue to be reduced to humanitarian practice, charity work and the securitisation of subjects (Chmutina et al ., 2022). Such considerations necessitate profound self-reflection regarding the roles played by our concepts and frameworks in relation to society.…”

Section: Discussion: Should Disaster Research Be More Theoretical?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“Respect existence or expect … resilience?” epistemic reflexivity towards liberated disaster studies

Fuentealba

2024

DPM

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PurposeThis paper proposes a way of reflexing on how we think within critical disaster studies. It focuses on the biases and unthought dimensions of two concepts – resilience and development – and reflects on the relationship between theory and practice in critical disaster studies.Design/methodology/approachPremised on the idea of epistemic reflexivity developed by Pierre Bourdieu, and drawing on previous research, this theoretical article analyses two conceptual biases and shortcomings of disaster studies: how resilience builds on certain agency; and how development assumes certain political imagination.FindingsThe article argues that critical disaster scholars must reflect on their own intellectual practice, including the origin of concepts and what they do. This is exemplified by a description of how the idea of resistance is intimately connected to that of resilience, and by showing that we must go beyond the capitalist realism that typically underlies development and risk creation. The theoretical advancement of our field can provide ways of thinking about the premises of many of our concepts.Originality/valueThe paper offers an invitation for disaster researchers to engage with critical thought and meta-theoretical reflexions. To think profoundly about our concepts is a necessary first step to developing critical scholarship. Epistemic reflexivity in critical disaster studies therefore provides an interesting avenue by which to liberate the field from overly technocratic approaches and develop its own criticality.

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Section: Discussion: Should Disaster Research Be More Theoretical?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“Respect existence or expect … resilience?” epistemic reflexivity towards liberated disaster studies

Fuentealba

2024

DPM

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“…But the demonstration of vulnerability can indeed becomes a pathway for resistance – for instance, refugees demanding legal papers; as Butler (2020) points out, this is not a miraculous transformation from vulnerability into strength, but an articulation for a demand to live. Such demands are a threat to the state and are often met with violence and coercion (Chmutina et al ., 2022). The pressure to comply/compromise, and the associated violence, can therefore lead away from disobedience to either acquiescence or reforming.…”

Section: The Ideological Dilemma Of Responding To Vulnerabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When protection is not possible or desirable – or the vulnerable disobey – it can easily be substituted by neoliberal rhetoric about individual failures, where the vulnerable are portrayed as a threat to the established social order, property and the elite power. They can be marked as “dangerous” and securitised, with violent repercussions (Chmutina et al ., 2022). The aim of such a framing of vulnerability is to facilitate the design of social life that minimises frictions with neoliberal “progress” and growth: a qualitative issue of vulnerability becomes a quantitative issue of profit and loss (and thus needs to be addressed) (Scott, 1998).…”

Section: Autonomy and Social Hierarchy In Contradictory Responses To ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But its well-documented limitations (e.g. in Marino and Faas, 2020; Bankoff and Hilhorst, 2022; Chmutina et al ., 2022) suggest that perhaps it is time to rethink how we use the concept of vulnerability in relation to disasters. This paper aims to unpack a range of arguments built around vulnerability and, drawing on critical theory, to encourage disaster scholars to challenge ourselves and our peers to maintain reflexive scholarship and search for liberatory potential, not only in vulnerability but in other concepts that have become normative.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…What’s more, however, is that such labelling as “weak” by default leads to alienation; the vulnerable become the other and are “framed” as a “problem” that lies outside of a “normal” identity” (Butler, 2009; Eriksen, 2022). Here a shift occurs in which the state marks the vulnerable as posing a threat to the established social order (Chmutina et al. , 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From labelling weakness to liberatory praxis: a new theory of vulnerability for disaster studies

Meding

Chmutina

2023

DPM

Self Cite

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PurposeVulnerability is a label and a concept that is widely used in disaster studies. To date the meaning has been quite limited and implied “weakness”, with criticisms arising periodically but not halting vulnerability's reproduction. In this paper, the authors offer a new theory of vulnerability for the field, suggesting that complicating the concept can create space for liberatory discourse and organising.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw from diverse understandings of vulnerability to generate new conceptual ground for disaster scholars. The authors explore the relationships between power and agency and autonomy and social hierarchy with regards to how vulnerability is considered within neoliberal democracies. The authors also outline ideological responses and the political actions that follow.FindingsThis exploration is underpinned by dissatisfaction with the way that vulnerability has thus far been theorised in disaster studies. Using the analytical framings provided, the authors hope that others will build on the idea that so-called “vulnerable” people, working in solidarity and using intersecting frameworks of anti-racism, anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism, can undermine the risk-creating norms of the neoliberal state.Originality/valueThe authors argue that the dominant framing of vulnerability in disaster studies – and usage of the vulnerability paradigm – provides political traction for neoliberal social projects, based on notions of humanitarianism. The authors make this claim as a challenge to the authors and the authors' peers to maintain reflexive scholarship and search for liberatory potential, not only in vulnerability but in other concepts that have become normative.

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Resisting climate change vulnerability: feminist and decolonial insights

Weatherill

2023

Int Polit

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In climate politics, understanding and contesting the meaning of vulnerability has proved extremely difficult. On the one hand, it is an increasingly formalised term that means something very specific scientifically and methodologically within the climate change institutions. On the other hand, vulnerability is part of a colonial discursive framework of risk. In this article, I show how contestations into the scientific project have not sufficiently worked to address the colonial geographic imaginaries that underlie the discursive framework of vulnerability. I suggest that bringing together the work of critical adaptation studies (CAS) with critical feminist and decolonial scholarship, such as the counternarratives of the Pacific,offers a way to resist the victimising politics of disposability and also rethink vulnerability as a concept of resistance, relationality and reflexivity.

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From pity to fear: security as a mechanism for (re)production of vulnerability

Abstract: The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.

Cited by 3 publications

References 82 publications

“Respect existence or expect … resilience?” epistemic reflexivity towards liberated disaster studies

“Respect existence or expect … resilience?” epistemic reflexivity towards liberated disaster studies

From labelling weakness to liberatory praxis: a new theory of vulnerability for disaster studies

Resisting climate change vulnerability: feminist and decolonial insights

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