Emergent Conversation 26

This essay is part of the series Making Vulnerability Work
PoLAR Online Emergent Conversation 26

Commissioned and Edited by Eve Helms

Across disciplines, it remains difficult to bridge the gap between theory and policy. Scholars develop ideas that deepen understanding of social systems and the conditions that shape them, while policymakers and practitioners seek tools that can guide decisions and improve outcomes. Each side often recognizes the value of the other, but they operate on different timelines, with different incentives and measures of success. As a result, theory and policy meet unevenly, sometimes productively, sometimes not at all.

This pattern is especially evident in the management of disaster risk. Early efforts to reduce disaster losses were largely technical, treating disasters as environmental events that could be controlled by reducing exposure through engineering solutions and early warning systems. Anthropologists and cultural geographers were among the first to question this logic, working to understand why disaster impacts and recovery outcomes varied so widely within and across affected communities (e.g., Bankoff et al., 2004; Cutter, 1996; Hoffman & Oliver-Smith, 1999; O’Keefe et al., 1976). Their research traced how disasters are constructed, experienced, and responded to across cultural settings, making the case for a focus on vulnerability by demonstrating the ways in which “disasters are as deeply embedded in the social structure and culture of a society as they are in an environment” (Oliver-Smith, 1999, p.34).

These seminal works, and many others, paved the way for scholars across the social sciences to theorize how social vulnerability shapes disaster impacts and recovery outcomes, and these insights gradually began to influence global policy. This shift became explicit with the United Nations’ adoption of the Hyogo Framework (2007) and its successor, the Sendai Framework (2015), which recognized that the creation and maintenance of disaster risk are rooted as much in social, economic, and political conditions as in environmental hazards. The institutional emphasis on understanding vulnerability as a social process marked an important step toward integrating these perspectives into the international governance of disaster risk.

In the United States, similar ideas began to take shape in policy and practice. In 2011, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) demonstrated the value of a Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) for disaster management, showing how populations already at risk, including people of color, the elderly, the poor, and people with disabilities, experienced disproportionate impacts during Hurricane Katrina (Flanagan et al.). The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) later incorporated the SVI into its National Risk Index, an online tool designed to identify the communities most at risk to natural hazards across the country (2025). However, the term remains absent from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Disaster Recovery Framework (2024)  and the National Disaster Response Framework (2019).

In practice, there is a growing commitment within the emergency management community to engage marginalized groups in planning and decision-making, and to view recovery as a shared responsibility that includes households, communities, and institutions. These developments reflect an important change in how disaster risk reduction is imagined and organized, moving away from purely technical solutions toward ones that recognize social context.

Even so, it remains difficult to assess the full impact of these changes. Many community-based and participatory approaches are relatively new, and their long-term outcomes are not yet clear. More importantly, these interventions often take place within broader structures that remain unchanged. The roots of vulnerability lie in historical and ongoing inequalities that extend beyond the scope of individual programs (Hsu et al., 2015). Without addressing those underlying dynamics, the benefits of new approaches may be limited or temporary.

In the United States, these patterns are especially visible. Disaster policy increasingly reflects an awareness of social vulnerability, yet the systems that govern disaster response and recovery continue to operate within established institutional and political boundaries. The defunding of equity-based research, the denial of climate change, and the relaxation of environmental and energy regulations all have implications for who is most at risk. These shifts not only affect those who have long experienced the greatest harm during disasters but also expand the reach of vulnerability to include those who were once protected from it.

These developments point to both the persistence and transformation of vulnerability as a guiding concept. Over the past three decades, vulnerability has become a standard part of disaster policy and research. It is referenced in strategic plans, risk assessments, and recovery programs across institutions. Yet as it has become more established, its meanings and uses have multiplied. It now functions as both an analytic framework and a policy category, bridging social theory and administrative practice while never fitting entirely within either.

This in-between position raises important questions about what happens when a concept originally meant to expose inequality becomes a tool of governance (Chmutina et al., 2023; Faas, 2016; Marino & Faas, 2020; Von Meding & Chmutina, 2023). Its widespread adoption suggests that vulnerability will continue to shape how risk and recovery are defined, understood, and managed for years to come. This series acknowledges that reality by having anthropologists reflect on their place within it. If vulnerability is here to stay, how can it be applied to build policies and programs that are equitable, practical, and impactful in addressing the realities of risk? And what should be the role and responsibilities of anthropologists in that effort?

In this collection, Omer Aijazi challenges the widespread acceptance of vulnerability in our systems and institutions, where it is often celebrated as a step toward justice. He asks us to look more closely at what he calls vulnerability’s “carceral” dimensions, where the language and use of vulnerability imply that we already know both the problem and the solution to human suffering. In doing so, vulnerability can flatten the diversity of human experience, allowing one-dimensional solutions to be applied to complex, multi-layered problems—or, as he puts it, “flatten suffering into sameness.” By labeling individuals or communities as vulnerable, we make their experiences both legible and manageable within institutional systems. Once someone is classified as vulnerable, a familiar set of logics and interventions can be deployed to address that condition. Yet in doing so, we also reinforce the same relationships of power that vulnerability is meant to expose, especially in the moments following a disaster when those relationships are most visible.

Crystal Felima invites us to think about vulnerability from a perspective that doesn’t get enough attention in the scientific community. She reminds us that vulnerability is not just something we study in others but also something we experience ourselves. She asks us to consider not only the power relationships that create social vulnerability but also the emotional and psychological toll of working closely with people who live with it every day. Felima suggests that the future of vulnerability, and its continued usefulness, depends on how well we take care of both our interlocutors and ourselves. As practicing anthropologists, part of making vulnerability work means continuing to engage its roots as a concept while also ensuring we can sustain ourselves in the process.

Finally, A.J. Faas, one of the most prolific writers on vulnerability, also engages with its affective dimension. He draws attention to our role as researchers in the field but also as people connecting with others. Faas reminds us that care can be a way of moving across power differences, not as an act of paternalism, but as a practice of mutual recognition. When we engage with our interlocutors, it can be easy to focus only on the larger structures that shape vulnerability and lose sight of the immediate human relationships that make our work possible. Faas suggests that the future of vulnerability research depends, at least in part, on our ability to care not only for ourselves but for one another, and that this care is what allows our work to bring about real change.

I am deeply grateful to Crystal Felima, Omer Aijazi, and A.J. Faas for their invaluable contributions to this call, and to the broader field of disaster studies and vulnerability research. Their work reminds us that making vulnerability work, now and in the future, depends on our willingness to engage with ourselves and one another with care. It asks us to recognize that when we collaborate, when we think, write, and work together, we have the ability to step outside pre-determined modes of engagement and create space for ourselves and others to be seen, felt, and heard in the shared pursuit of knowledge and justice.

Eve Helms is a PhD Student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After nearly seven years supporting disaster recovery and resilience efforts at the federal, state, and local levels, she is committed to furthering equitable climate change adaptation and disaster resilience in the United States.  Her research interests primarily center around the relationship between power, politics, climate vulnerability, and community resilience within the United States.

Works Cited

Bankoff, G., Ferks, G., & Hilhorst, D. 2004. Mapping Vulnerability: Disaster, Development, and People. Earthscan.

Chmutina, K., von Meding, J., Williams, D. A., Vickery, J., & Purdum, C. 2023. “From Pity to Fear: Security as a Mechanism for (Re)Production of Vulnerability. Disasters 47(3):  546–562. https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12568.

Cutter, S. 1996. “Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards.” Progress in Human Geography 20(4): 529–539.

Faas, A. J. 2016. “Disaster Vulnerability in Anthropological Perspective.” Annals of Anthropological Practice 40(1): 14–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/napa.12084.

FEMA. 2019. National Disaster Response Framework. The Federal Emergency Management Agency. Accessed December 11, 2025:  https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/NRF_FINALApproved_2011028.pdf.

FEMA. 2024. National Disaster Recovery Framework. The Federal Emergency Management Agency. Accessed December 11, 2025:  https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_national-disaster-recovery-framework-third-edition_05062025_0.pdf.

Flanagan, B. E., Gregory, E. W., Hallisey, E. J., Heitgerd, J. L., & Lewis, B. 2011. “A Social Vulnerability Index for Disaster Management.” Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management 8(1). https://doi.org/10.2202/1547-7355.1792.

Hoffman, S., & Oliver-Smith, A. 1999. The Angry Earth: Disaster in Atrhopological Perspective. Psychology Press.

Hsu, M., Howitt, R., & Miller, F. 2015. “Procedural Vulnerability and Institutional Capacity Deficits in Post-Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction: Insights from Wutai Rukai Experiences of Typhoon Morakot.” Human Organization 74(4):  308-318.

Marino, E. K., & Faas, A. J. 2020. “Is Vulnerability an Outdated Concept? After Subjects and Spaces.” Annals of Anthropological Practice 44(1), 33–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/napa.12132.

O’Keefe, P., Westgate, K., & Wisner, B. 1976. “Taking the Naturalness Out of Natural Disasters.” Nature 260 5552: 566–567. https://doi.org/10.1038/260566a0.

Oliver-Smith, A. 1999. “What Is a Disaster? Anthropological Perspectives on a Persistent Question.” In The Angry Earth: Disaster in Anthropological Perspective, edited by A. Oliver-Smith & S. Hoffman,  pp. 18-35. New York:  Routledge.

FEMA. 2025. National Risk Index Technical Documentation. The Federal Emergency Management Agency. Accessed December 11, 2025:  https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_national-risk-index_technical-documentation.pdf.

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. 2005. Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters (No. UN/ISDR-07-2007-Geneva). Geneva:  United Nations. Accessed December 11, 2025:  https://www.unisdr.org/files/1037_hyogoframeworkforactionenglish.pdf.

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. 2015. Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. Geneva:  United Nations. Accessed December 11, 2025:  https://www.undrr.org/media/16176/download?startDownload=20251018.

Von Meding, J., & Chmutina, K. 2023. “From Labelling Weakness to Liberatory Praxis: A New Theory of Vulnerability for Disaster Studies.” Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal 32(2):  364–378. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-10-2022-0208.