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Titre
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4.2.1 Training Through Fieldwork : Politics of Vulnerability
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Description
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The second theme aims to explore the concept of vulnerability in a broad sense, focusing on its definitions and the political and institutional responses it elicits. In contemporary debates, vulnerability appears as a particularly central analytical and normative category in the fields of health, social issues, migration policies, aging, childhood, and environmental and digital inequalities.
Vulnerability is not only an individual or biomedical condition: it also constitutes a framework for problematization that helps to guide public action, categorize populations, and legitimize certain intervention mechanisms. Vulnerability is thus frequently translated into indicators, eligibility criteria, administrative categories, or measurement tools produced by—and serving—public policies. This translation is never neutral: it involves trade-offs, prioritizes, defines what is recognized as risk, fragility, or need, and influences access to rights and resources.
The overall objective of the task is therefore to develop a collective reflection on vulnerability policies, comparing diverse institutional and socio-historical contexts and analyzing the tensions between vulnerability, protection, autonomy, empowerment, and social justice.
This programme can take place in Colombia (PUJ, ICSI), France (Univ. Lorraine, Univ. Strasbourg, UMLP), Italy (Univ. Piemont Oriental, Univ. Parma), Djibouti (IRICA), Ethiopia (CFEE, IES), Togo (INSUCO Togo), Madagascar (INSUCO Mada) and Canada (UDEM), from February 2026 to September 2029.
Programme leader: Stefania Fucci, Universita di Parma
