eprintid: 10206229 rev_number: 7 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/20/62/29 datestamp: 2025-03-18 11:15:14 lastmod: 2025-03-18 11:15:14 status_changed: 2025-03-18 11:15:14 type: article metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: Baumann, Hanna creators_name: Moore, Henrietta L title: Towards a Relational Understanding of Vulnerability: The Response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Lebanon Through a Feminist Lens ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B04 divisions: C04 divisions: J76 keywords: Displacement, Lebanon, Refugees, Syria, Vulnerability, Humanitarianism note: © 2025 SAGE Publications. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). abstract: Recent debates on vulnerability have considered how to best define and measure it in order to account for the various factors that shape people’s susceptibility to harm. This article reads humanitarian and development notions of vulnerability against the relational and interdependent view put forward by feminist scholars. Such a conceptual interrogation, which examines the broader assumptions underpinning aid programming, is especially relevant as vulnerability has become a key metric for eligibility for support in a range of global contexts. Examining two approaches used for assessing and alleviating vulnerability deployed in the response to the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon, we show that the tools utilized by aid programmes reflect particular views of how vulnerability operates. In examining those conceptualizations through the lens of recent development and feminist thinking on vulnerability, we foreground the interdependence of different groups, the generative nature of this interdependency, as well as the interlocked nature of scales involved in producing (and alleviating) vulnerability. Adopting such a relational and dynamic view of vulnerability, we argue, can open possibilities for more inclusive and transformational development approaches. date: 2025-01 date_type: published publisher: SAGE Publishing official_url: https://doi.org/10.1177/14649934241303301 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 2357465 doi: 10.1177/14649934241303301 lyricists_name: Moore, Henrietta lyricists_name: Baumann, Hanna lyricists_id: HLMOO34 lyricists_id: HBAUM48 actors_name: Moore, Henrietta actors_id: HLMOO34 actors_role: owner funding_acknowledgements: CI170095 [British Academy] full_text_status: public publication: Progress in Development Studies volume: 25 number: 1 pagerange: 26-44 pages: 19 citation: Baumann, Hanna; Moore, Henrietta L; (2025) Towards a Relational Understanding of Vulnerability: The Response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Lebanon Through a Feminist Lens. Progress in Development Studies , 25 (1) pp. 26-44. 10.1177/14649934241303301 <https://doi.org/10.1177/14649934241303301>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10206229/1/Towards%20a%20relational%20understanding.pdf