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This book describes and analyzes the conceptual ambiguity of vulnerability, in an effort to understand its particular applications for legal and political protection when relating to groups. Group vulnerability has become a common concept within legal and political scholarship but remains largely undertheorized as a phenomenon itself. At the same time, in academia and within legal circles, vulnerability is primarily understood as a phenomenon affecting individuals, and the attempts to identify vulnerable groups are discredited as essentialist and stereotypical. In contrast, this book demonstrates that a conception of group vulnerability is not only theoretically possible, but also politically and legally necessary. Two conceptions of group vulnerability are discussed: one focuses on systemic violence or oppression directed toward several individuals, while another requires a common positioning of individuals within a given context that conditions their agency, ability to cope with risks and uncertainties, and manage their consequences. By comparing these two definitions of group vulnerability and their implications, Macioce seeks a more precise delineation of the theoretical boundaries of the concept of group vulnerability.
List of contents
1. Introduction.- 2. Vulnerability: What Are We Talking About?.- 3. The Vulnerable Groups and Their Legal Value.- 4. Towards a Theory of Group Vulnerability.- 5. Group Vulnerability and Parallel Dimensions.- 6.Group Vulnerability and Power.- 7. Vulnerability in a Positional Sense: The Case of Trials.- 8. Identity-Based Group Vulnerability: The Case of "Irregular" Migrants.
About the author
Fabio Macioce is Professor of Philosophy of Law and Bioethics at LUMSA University, School of Law, Italy.
