SANT/FAS 2018 Conference: Vulnerabilities

Gina Crivello, Senior Researcher Officer at Young Lives, will be presenting at the SANT/FAS 2018 Conference titled 'Vulnerabilities', 19-21 April.

Gina will present ‘Against the Odds’: Vulnerability and resilience in the trajectories of children growing up in poverty in Ethiopia. This paper draws on Anthropologies of Hope and Ethnographies of Uncertainty to explore why some children growing up in poverty fare well ‘against the odds’ despite the odds being stacked against them early in life, using data from Young Lives. The paper examines how vulnerability is experienced, understood, negotiated and transgressed in the context of children’s changing relationships and material circumstances. In particular, Gina asks what made a difference in the lives of those children who, by age 19, appeared to be faring well despite layered disadvantage. Among other factors, Gina will look at the crucial role of social relationships and support networks, migration, and the importance of hope and ‘second chances’. Rather than the opposite of agency, vulnerability is the space wherein children cultivate their agency (however constrained). However, Gina will caution against snapshot approaches to gauging ‘resilience’ or ‘success’ at any one age, for any one child, since the longitudinal approach shows that trajectories remain fragile and futures uncertain.

Find the full programme and abstracts on the conference website here.