Presentation of the Main Focus

To guide you through the day, we have suggested four themes:

• Focus 1: The Journeys, Trajectories, and Experiences of Individuals and Groups Considered Vulnerable

This focus invites us to reflect on how vulnerability manifests itself in individual or collective journeys, including physical and mental health; gender; age; social status; and disability, as well as inequalities related to these factors. It also invites us to consider the emotions, suffering, and fragilities experienced on a daily basis. The goal is to analyze social experiences and examine processes of recognition and institutional mechanisms that aim to supervise, support, or accompany these identified "vulnerable" groups.

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• Focus 2: Vulnerable territories and environments (and sources of vulnerability)

Vulnerabilities can be observed in urban, rural, coastal, digital, and institutional spaces. This theme focuses on how spaces, territories, and environments generate, transform, and undergo shocks, such as climatic hazards, natural and technological risks, and economic and social changes. Considering vulnerable territories means questioning spatial inequalities in exposure. This theme incorporates a spatial understanding of vulnerability.

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• Focus 3: (De)Constructing Vulnerability: Contributions and Limitations

This axis encourages research questioning the contributions and limitations of vulnerability analyses. Papers may address epistemological, methodological, and ethical issues related to this theme. From a critical perspective, vulnerability is also understood as a social and institutional category capable of universalizing situations, obscuring power relations, and masking hierarchies of lives deemed worthy of attention. This theme opens up reflection on the construction and performativity of an ambivalent concept at the intersection of concern for others and the governance of lives.

• Focus 4: The Vulnerability of Researchers

Researchers are not mere observers; they are involved, exposed, and sometimes weakened by their subjects, fields, and practices. The aim is to explore the vulnerability inherent in the profession of researcher, including physical vulnerability and emotional burden. Vulnerability as a researcher can manifest in various ways, such as recognizing the unexpected nature of research/fieldwork, the difficulty of maintaining distance from one's subject of study, the permeability between scientific knowledge and lived experience, and exposure to sensitive situations or hostile environments. This theme will provide an opportunity for interdisciplinary reflection.

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These four communication themes do not exhaustively represent the topic of vulnerabilities; therefore, proposals may go beyond this framework if the concept resonates with you differently.