Social Vulnerability in Flexible Accumulation Times: A Contribution to the Debate in the Environmental Field

Abstract

The notion of vulnerability has been used in various fields of knowledge. One of its uses is in interdisciplinary research on environmental vulnerability, in which is understood in a simplified way as the overlap of social vulnerability and environmental risks. The debate in the environmental field was identified as having been dominated by perspectives of social science individualistic character and functionalist, with little openness for critical readings. In order to contribute to the expansion of this debate, we seek in this paper to present a theoretical discussion about the notion of social vulnerability. It is argued that, despite being used by authors from different theoretical and ideal political orientations, its dominant use is established within the revisited liberal thought. This hegemony is in line with the societal changes occurring since the 1970s, with the crisis of the Fordist regime of accumulation and the emergence of flexible accumulation regime. A new social grammar takes shape to address issues related to poverty, inequality and social injustice, which stresses an approach to vulnerability based on the assets and the capabilities, focused on individuals and their needs, responding to fiscal adjustment and cutting public spending. Alternatively, emphasis is given to a processual approach, focused on the rights and protection and on the unequal exposure to risk and its economic and political causes.