Vulnerability in the Context of Migration: a Critical Overview and a New Conceptual Model

Abstract

The notion of “vulnerability” occupies a central role in academic literature, policymaking, humanitarian debates, and everyday discourses on migration and asylum. Its popularity has led some academics and practitioners to use “vulnerability” as a self-explanatory condition or phenomenon. However, a common and systematic understanding of the concept is still missing, and the moral and political meaning often ascribed to this notion may have (un)intended detrimental consequences for those migrants deemed vulnerable. Thus, this paper sets out to critically unpack and highlight the complexities hidden behind this notion in order to provide a conceptual analysis of vulnerability in the context of migration. We do so by (1) providing an overview of definitions of vulnerability across different fields of research, (2) identifying common conceptualizations or types of vulnerability and discussing their implications, and (3) highlighting possible negative societal and psychological consequences of its implementation in the context of migration. Finally, we propose (4) a new conceptual model for understanding vulnerability in the context of migration, showing how this notion can become a useful analytical tool in migration research.

How Do Professionals Regard Vulnerable People in a Portuguese Community Setting? A Qualitative Content Analysis

“…Moreover, categorizing every member of a certain group as marginalized or vulnerable may be (further) disempowering (Gilodi et al 2022;Pratt 2019). A person's ability to resist and change the path of their life may be hidden and their agency minimized or denied by labeling them as "vulnerable" (Peroni and Timmer 2013).…”

Vulnerability of Asylum Seekers and Undocumented Migrants in Toronto

“…The literature underscores the highly problematic nature of defining a migrant's vulnerability along predetermined categories based on the intrinsic or situational characteristics of individuals. Gilodi, Albert, and Nienaber (2022) argue that relating vulnerability to a set of personal or situational characteristics may run the risk of ignoring the social, institutional, legal, and economic conditions that create exploitation and discrimination in society, and thus vulnerability. Leboeuf (2021, 5) highlights the risks of excessive reliance on standardised "vulnerability" checks, which fail to account for the actual position of protection seekers and the complex ways in which their life challenges intersect.…”

Vulnerability-Making at Europe’s Edge: How Policies, Documents, and Spatiality Intra-Act in the Context of Young Refugees

“…What, then, is vulnerability and what does it mean to be vulnerable? There is a tension in the literature as to whether vulnerability is innate or if it is situationally produced (Gilodi et al 2022).…”

“…As such, people can become “vulnerabilized” (Lind 2019). The situational approach toward vulnerability takes seriously social, political, economic, and environmental circumstances, indicating vulnerability’s “intersectional” (Mendola and Pera 2022) and “temporal” (Gilodi et al 2022) character.…”