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Societies
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Vulnerability in Theology, the Humanities and Social Sciences
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Vulnerability in Theology, the Humanities and Social Sciences

A special issue of Societies (ISSN 2075-4698).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2024) | Viewed by 618

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Hildegund Keul

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Catholic Theology, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, 97070 Würzburg, Germany
Interests: vulnerability as a key concept in theology, science and society; vulnerability, vulnerance and resilience; engravings of mysticism in systematic theology; religion, ritual and sacrament—theology as heterology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Claudia Bruns

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institut für Kulturwissenschaft, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, D-10117 Berlin, Germany
Interests: vulnerability; gender, sexuality and body history; anti-semitism and colonial racism; national religion/religious fundamentalism; cinematic memory of the Holocaust and genocide
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Τhe natural and life sciences have denigrated the concept of vulnerability for a long time in research, treating it through the lens of weakness. However, since the turn of the millennium, theology, the humanities, and social sciences have become involved in research on vulnerability, and vulnerability is no longer viewed through the binary coding of vulnerability and resilience, but rather, it is understood in a more complex way, taking into account its multiple effects of power, including 'vulnerance out of vulnerability'.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the discourse once more. On one hand, the concept has been narrowed again in the social debates. On the other hand, vulnerability has developed into a new dispositive of power. Both developments challenge vulnerability research regarding what interdisciplinary approaches can yield.

In this Special Issue, the contributions of vulnerability research in theology, the humanities, and the social sciences will be worked out in connection with this challenge. We welcome all articles from the perspective of the individual disciplines as well as those written from transdisciplinary perspectives. The range of thematic fields is also broad and can for example include discourses on migration, climate change, gender, right-wing populism, race, and both sexual and spiritual violence.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors (h.keul@theologie.uni-wuerzburg.de; claudia.bruns@culture.hu-berlin.de) or to the Societies editorial office (societies@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Religions.

Prof. Dr. Hildegund Keul
Prof. Dr. Claudia Bruns
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • vulnerability
  • resilience
  • vulnerance
  • dispositive of power
  • gender perspectives

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 233 KiB  
Article
The Vulnerability and Injustices Faced by Young Carers in Developed Societies
by Gottfried Schweiger
Societies 2025, 15(4), 101; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15040101 - 16 Apr 2025
Viewed by 234
Abstract
Around 2–8% of children and adolescents in developed societies are young carers, who provide care for ill, disabled, or addicted family members. This paper investigates the vulnerability and multidimensional injustices faced by young carers, drawing on empirical studies—both qualitative and quantitative—and social theory [...] Read more.
Around 2–8% of children and adolescents in developed societies are young carers, who provide care for ill, disabled, or addicted family members. This paper investigates the vulnerability and multidimensional injustices faced by young carers, drawing on empirical studies—both qualitative and quantitative—and social theory to reveal how young carers navigate their roles within the broader context of social inequality, highlighting the social structures and mechanisms that contribute to their marginalization and the detrimental consequences for their social inclusion, well-being, and personal development. The methodology of this article is a narrative analysis of relevant empirical research on young carers, combined with an analysis of this literature through a normative framework of social justice, which examines four dimensions of justice in order to highlight the vulnerability of young carers. (1) Firstly, young carers are often pushed into their situation because of economic and social constraints, which do not allow the family to find a different solution. Economic inequalities lead to and enforce caring obligations and have a cumulative negative effect on the young carer. Limited resources can be problematic for social inclusion, and when combined with caring obligations, they are corrosive. (2) Secondly, young carers are often victims of moral blackmail, which is that they are trapped in a situation where it would be morally wrong for them to act otherwise. Such moral blackmail can be carried out by those who are cared for, by the family and relatives or even by society, which could, but does not provide alternatives to young carers. (3) Thirdly, young carers are often manipulated to accept their caring obligations through distorted social norms and practices. Other than in the case of moral blackmail, such young carers do not care because they want to do the morally right thing and do have no alternatives available, but because they internalized that it would be normal for them to do so. Two concepts are useful to capture this aspect: adaptive preferences and indoctrination. (4) Fourthly, young people caring is often a form of exploitation, in that it takes unfair advantage of the young carer by receiving something from them, without giving an equivalent in return (and harming them in the process). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vulnerability in Theology, the Humanities and Social Sciences)
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