Abstract
This first chapter aims to present the state of the art regarding the topic of design in vulnerable communities. Giving the most important references in the academic literature, the editors will define the theoretical framework and explain the reasons and the goals of this book. With this first chapter the feature of multidisciplinary work will be introduced, and the attention will be focused on the importance to adapt design methodologies according to the new challenges that these difficult realities will have to face in the next few years. This chapter will present the five parts of the book, introducing the general content and main contribution of each chapter. The various chapters provide up-to-date scientific background information identifying knowledge gaps and addressing vary aspects of vulnerabilities and vulnerable communities and lay out pressing challenges along with applications, actions, experiences, and questions.
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Notes
- 1.
In this regards the Chap. 19 of The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) see: Oppenheimer, M., M. Campos, R. Warren, J. Birkmann, G. Luber, B. O’Neill, and K. Takahashi, 2014: Emergent risks and key vulnerabilities. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Field, C.B., V.R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L. White (eds.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 1039–1099], has the objective to assess new literature published since the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) on emergent risks and key vulnerabilities to climate change from the perspective of the distribution of risk over geographic location, economic sector, time period, and socioeconomic characteristics of individuals and societies. The Report, which is of course centered on the issue on climate change provide several interesting definition of ‘vulnerability’ and ‘risk’ and their interdependencies. We include here their definition and for more deepen information see the full Report. “Vulnerability: The propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. Vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts and elements
including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt.
A broad set of factors such as wealth, social status, and gender determine vulnerability and exposure to climate-related risk. Risk: The potential for consequences where something of value is at stake and where the outcome is uncertain, recognizing the diversity of values. Risk is often represented as probability of occurrence of hazardous events or trends multiplied by the impacts if these events or trends occur. Risk = (Probability of Events or Trends) × Consequences. Risk results from the interaction of vulnerability, exposure, and hazard. In this report, the term risk is used primarily to refer to the risks of climate-change impacts”.
- 2.
Luis R. Fernández Carril, Vicepresidencia de Inclusión, Impacto social y Sostenibilidad, Tecnologico de Monterrey (Mexico), in his presentation titled “Biopolitics and Necropolitics of the Anthropocene” at the ‘Design for vulnerables’ workshop held online on Thursday, seventh of January 2021 has stated: “Vulnerability is not exclusively a condition of exposure to environmental risk. It is embedded in socio-political relations at all scales. Furthermore, in many cases, vulnerability is created by political decisions, whether by imposing unethical living conditions or exposing populations to death, willingly or unwillingly. These decisions that create or exacerbate vulnerability could be described through the conceptual framework of biopolitics and necropolitics. Biopolitical and necropolitical dynamics are embedded in the very design of social strategies on climate change coping mechanisms, creating or exacerbating vulnerability. In this manner, we claim the need to look beyond environmental risks, at the power dynamics in place to find additional (or the main) sources of vulnerability. Furthermore, we claim the importance of necessarily including social justice and inequity in design in order to reduce the vulnerability of populations to environmental risks.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the external reviewers for providing critical and helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter and on the book proposal. This work was funded by Fondo de Investigación 2020–2021 del Observatorio de Ciudades del Tecnologico de Monterrey (Mexico), through the research project “Design for vulnerables,” project duration from October 2020 to December 2021.
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Cattaneo, T., Giorgi, E., Herrera, A.M.F., del Socorro Aceves Tarango, V. (2022). Introduction on Design for Vulnerable Communities. In: Giorgi, E., Cattaneo, T., Flores Herrera, A.M., Aceves Tarango, V.d.S. (eds) Design for Vulnerable Communities. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96866-3_1
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