Disability, inclusion and overcoming ‘vulnerability’ in the UK severe weather emergency response context

Citation

Connon I (2021) Disability, inclusion and overcoming ‘vulnerability’ in the UK severe weather emergency response context. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting 2021, Baltimore, Maryland, US (Virtual), 17.11.2021-21.11.2021.

Abstract
In UK emergency response policies, people with disabilities are understood as being potentially more ‘vulnerable’ than other members of society. However, critical examination of these policies show that this understanding is based on a narrow conceptualisation of vulnerability that is inherently linked to ideas of bodily impairments, rather than the interrelationship between a person and the socio-cultural environment. This paper contributes to the emerging anthropological critique of ‘vulnerability’ by revealing the plethora of ways people with disabilities actively, creatively, and successfully responded during recent periods of extreme weather. I argue that their accounts also problematise dominant understandings of ‘inclusion’ within the official emergency response policy development and practice context, as inclusion within systems embedded upon this classification risks reducing autonomy and creativity. However, attempts to resist ‘vulnerability’ labels through envisioning alternative emergency response strategies are further complicated by understandings of the importance of the body in conceptualising disability, the presence of neoliberal values that reshape expectations of what it means to ‘be disabled’, and current legislative responsibilities. The paper concludes that only by departing from familiar socio-cultural classificatory systems that underpin emergency response policy can the agency of people with disabilities be better acknowledged and emergency response protocols adequately revised.