ABSTRACT
In this final chapter, we focus on how to foster safety – that is, how to provide people with the capacity and ability to assure satisfaction of basic human needs, including site, situation, and stability of shelter despite exposure to hazards and to thrive on the basis of a reliable and sustainable livelihood. By reversing the progression of vulnerability outlined in previous chapters, we discover a new set of dynamic pressures. These lead back to and reveal a revised set of root causes that overturn historical oppression, marginalization, expropriation, and exploitation; heal the societal wounds and fragility created by prior wars and crises; and seek ways of favoring equitable distributions of power, resources, and wealth at all scales. This new cascade of root causes and dynamic pressures signals a direction for modified policy and practice if and when there is sufficient political demand for the construction of safety. Our reversed framework suggests a direction for change, not the speed of change, which will have to be negotiated by everyone.
