Coastal Vulnerability as Discourse About Meanings and Values

This paper argues that any approach to defining vulnerability is a social act, and is expressive of and grounded in some assumptions about the nature and purpose of language. Managing a complex environment such as the coastal zone is necessarily about choice and conflicts. A purpose of language is to persuade others to adopt the course of action that the individual or group consider should be adopted. In consequence, the definitions of vulnerability will necessarily be multiple and contested. From the research perspective what is then of interest are those insights into the nature of the choice, and particularly as to appropriate course of action to adopt, that are generated by any specific elaboration of vulnerability. It is thus less what people say than why they say it that is of importance in understanding their definitions of vulnerability and the intentions that underlie their discourse.