ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book seeks to outline a model of understanding what acting is when individuals are situated at the limits of the possibility to act, using an analysis framework based on situations of vulnerability understood as being an action context marked by a weakening of the ordinary and stable action structures. It demonstrates that the opportunity that exists to broaden the spectrum of political justice, through the use of reconstructive ethics based on the unique individuality of the social actors. The book shows that the invalidating form of integration, marked by powerlessness and the lack of confidence, makes the greatest contribution to a distancing from political and collective action as well as action of solidarity. It explores the problem of the continuity of self in a context of survival.
