ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I present an overview of social vulnerability to disasters and illustrate how it interweaves with structural marginalization based on race, class, gender, or other social power orders. Socioeconomic marginalization of low-income communities of color can be broken down into a number of factors: access to education, employment, housing and health, for example. People who reside in racially segregated and disadvantaged metropolitan neighborhoods often face long-standing difficulties in all or some of these aspects of life. These disadvantages manifest in disaster situations as well, which help explain how it is that some groups are more negatively impacted than others are. I also discuss how marginalization of low-income communities of color ties to political marginalization so that the most affected are also the least heard. Finally, I take stock of the very concept of vulnerability. I elaborate on how we need to be mindful in using the concept so as not to nullify the agency of marginalized people exposed to the perils of disasters.
