Premium
Productive exposures: Vulnerability as a parallel practice of care in ethnographic and community spaces
Author(s) -
Zizzo Gabriella,
Warin Megan,
Zivkovic Tanya,
Maher JaneMaree
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the australian journal of anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1757-6547
pISSN - 1035-8811
DOI - 10.1111/taja.12404
Subject(s) - vulnerability (computing) , disadvantaged , sociology , ethnography , politics , situated , critical ethnography , practice theory , social science , economic growth , anthropology , political science , economics , law , computer security , artificial intelligence , computer science
Theories of vulnerability are most often seen in the anthropology of disaster studies, where socio‐economic and political inequalities produce environmental vulnerabilities, and the people situated in these locations are positioned as vulnerable and dependent 'Others'. Rather than reproduce vulnerability as a concept denoting weakness, this paper seeks to examine the generative capacities of vulnerability practised in parallel in ethnographic and community spaces. As a form of witnessing and participating in and out of differing social worlds, anthropology engages in different vulnerabilities with and between multiple actors. This paper examines how a community program working with families identified as 'disadvantaged' in South Australia strategically uses vulnerability as a productive resource and a practice of care. In theorising vulnerability through parallel practices in both ethnographic approaches and this community program, we argue that vulnerability can be leveraged away from negative welfare discourses towards alternative politics of radical care and social change.