ABSTRACT
Although discussions of vulnerability frequently emphasize the dangers of being too closely tied to others, one of the worst harms to which we are vulnerable is social exclusion (Popay et al. 2008). This vulnerability to being cut off from social cooperation is frequently linked to various failures to “keep up.” In this paper, I discuss one source of vulnerability to social exclusion-namely, the ability to meet the expected levels of autonomy skills on which particular contexts of social cooperation are premised. I use the term “autonomy gap” to label this mismatch between institutionalized expectations and individuals’ ability to meet those expectations. This concept provides a perspicuous way of articulating a specific form of vulnerability to social exclusion that tends to be under analyzed in the literature on vulnerability. In particular, by attending to the relationship between autonomy gaps, social exclusion and vulnerability, we can appreciate the contextual, relational and social character of a number of complex societal wrongs.
