Examining Vulnerability to Natural Disasters

This chapter examines the political and economic construction of vulnerability, applying insights gained from third-world research to a first-world setting. Defining vulnerability in terms of people’s capacity to avoid, cope with, and recover from disasters draws attention to their living conditions, social and economic resources, livelihood patterns, and social power. While physical exposure to risk is a necessary element in vulnerability, it is people’s lack of capacities that transform an environmental hazard into a disaster. In both the first and third world, marginalization processes create vulnerability by placing specific groups in perilous positions between the inequitable conditions of political and economic systems on the one hand and environmental risks on the other. Class is generally a marker of access to resources and can include type and stability of employment, income, savings, and education levels. Low-income households may lack the means to prepare for hazardous environments and likewise lack necessary financial resources to recover after disaster.