The contested concept of vulnerability : a literature review

Abstract

The concept of vulnerability is widely used in the social sciences as well as in policy making, health and social care services and in social work, referring to a variety of groups or individuals, but it has rarely been theoretically defined or analysed. This article provides a literature review on how vulnerability has been used and defined in academic, peer-reviewed articles published in international social science journals between 2000 and 2016. The aim is to analyse and clarify critically the concept for social work research. The article analyses themes and topics connected to vulnerability, how gender is related to vulnerability and how vulnerability is conceptualised in these articles. The analysis showed that there is an important critical commentary on the concept, but only a few efforts to specify, theoretically analyse, reconceptualise or use the concept in an innovative way. The authors suggest that in social work research, instead of vulnerable groups or individuals we should focus on vulnerable life situations, and the role of the welfare services in reducing but possibly also (re)producing vulnerability. It is also important to recognise the temporal, situational, relational, and structural nature of vulnerability.