Multiply vulnerable populations: mobilising a politics of compassion from the ‘capacity to hurt’

Abstract

This paper reflects on the concept of insecurity defined as 'the capacity to hurt'. It begins by considering asylum seekers and refugees as hyper-precarious groups that have experienced bodily, material, and psychological 'hurt' in the UK. At the same time, the paper considers how these hyper-precarious groups are perceived to have the capacity to hurt (bodily, materially, psychologically and spatially) the majority population. Having drawn out two understandings of the capacity to hurt -both the ability to be or feel hurt, and the act of doing hurt to others, we argue that a shared recognition of what it means to feel hurt (co-suffering or suffering together) -albeit to very different extremes and with very different consequences -and an understanding of the processes which drive this might be mobilised politically to challenge the doing of hurt to others. In doing so, we argue for a group politics of compassion to respond to increasingly insecure times.

Multiple transformations: theorizing energy vulnerability as a socio-spatial phenomenon

“…Recent energy vulnerability scholarship -whose detailed consideration would extend beyond the confines of this paper -has emphasized the importance of considering the problem through a spatial and temporal framework, while highlighting its social construction and the need to consider how why and how a given entity may become or be considered vulnerable (Christmann et al 2012;Philo 2012;Waite, Valentine, and Lewis 2014). Energy vulnerability has been used in a very wide range of contexts, as it can refer to the infrastructural determinants of resource supply and import dependence at a variety of scales, as well as the systemic conditions that allow some entities to become more socially and technically precarious than others (Christie 2009;Hall, Hards, and Bulkeley 2013;Hiteva 2013).…”

Understanding Energy Poverty, Vulnerability and Justice

“…Recent energy vulnerability scholarship-whose detailed consideration would extend beyond the confines of this chapter-has emphasized the importance of considering the problem through a spatial and temporal framework, while discussing its social construction and the need to consider why and how a given entity may become or be considered vulnerable (Christmann, Ibert, Kilper, & Moss, 2012;Philo, 2012;Waite, Valentine, & Lewis, 2014). Energy vulnerability has been used in a very wide range of contexts, as it can refer to the infrastructural determinants of resource supply and import dependence at a variety of scales, as well as the systemic conditions that allow some entities to become more socially and technically precarious than others (Christie, 2009;Hall et al, 2013;Hiteva, 2013).…”

Cultural geography 1

“…Countering claims of a homology between precarity and individualisation, Worth shows how the experience of precaritisation is mediated by more or less dense social and cultural ties that by offering some certainty enable the force of insecurity to be mitigated or diminished. Waite, Valentine and Lewis (2015) give attention to a different type of precarious life: refugees and people seeking asylum in situations of forced and/or precarious labour. Careful never to reduce people to the status of passive victims, they show how routines are just about achieved in midst of interlocking forms of material, symbolic, bodily and psychological hurt.…”