The primary goal of this session was to make the concept of socially determined vulnerability useful for practitioners and academics. The discussion centered on the difference between socially caused versus physically caused exposure to risk from hazard. Ken Hewitt stated that vulnerability should be seen as including exposure and physical risk but not limited to them. Vulnerability analysis necessarily includes added focus on social constructions.
Disasters are discriminate.
Disasters and everyday life are being recognized as linked. Modern societies create risks as well as benefits and thus vulnerability is acutely sensitive to the extent of risk, exposure, rights, and entitlements, etc. The production of vulnerability resides in ongoing conditions of society. Walt Peacock pointed out that newer vulnerability perspectives depend on an understanding of the interactions between physical and social processes. This stems in part because vulnerability analysis is fundamentally concerned with development and development processes.