Our Projects

Research methods in vulnerability is a project funded by the British Academy and CIFAR, seeking to find alternative, anti-racist, feminist, indigenous and decolonising approaches to how we research understandings and experiences of in/security through the interdisciplinary knowledge sharing of methodologies in this field.

This project sits alongside the Vulnerability Studies Network, another British Academy and CIFAR funded project bringing together early career women scholars, researchers, and practitioners from different fields of study and studying different national contexts to stage collaborative discussions about the ways in which the concept of vulnerability as it relates to in/security is mobilised in different fields of expertise.

The study of vulnerability and in/security is an emergent, flexible, and multidisciplinary field. It draws on and is used in a wide range of subject areas including geography, economics, environmental studies, law, criminology, politics, public health, psychology, social justice, and sociology. It is predominantly used as a term to denote weakness of susceptibility to harm and is often used in conjunction with work in development, environmental and disaster studies with the aim of reducing risk and improving resilience. However, vulnerability is often overlooked in public policies and international relations.

The Vulnerability Studies Network seeks to answer the following questions:

1. How is vulnerability mobilised as a concept in different disciplinary contexts?
2. What are the processes (political, legal, civic, social) by which vulnerability and insecurity are ‘assessed’, ‘measured’ and ‘distributed’?
3. How might individual and collective vulnerability and insecurity open up spaces for resistance, empowerment, and solidarity?

Click on the links below to find out more about our members’ individual vulnerability research projects:

Environmental Security with Dr Mara Oliva

Refugee Law with Hilary Evans Cameron

Visualizing Gender-Based Violence in Graphic Awareness Campaigns in Nepal with Charlotta Salmi