CRCC Event: Constructing Vulnerability

The CRCC, in collaboration with the Discourse and Rhetoric Group (DARG), are proud to announce ‘Constructing Vulnerability’, a hybrid symposium on the communicative construction of vulnerability and its implications for social organisation and collective futures.

Date: Thursday 21st May
Time: 10am-4:30pm
Location: Jennings Council Chambers, Hazlerigg Building Loughborough University, and online

Constructing vulnerability

Vulnerability denotes exposure to potential harm—a condition that, while applicable across a range of domains, assumes particular ethical and political significance in relation to human subjects. Contemporary discourse frequently designates certain populations as “vulnerable” through political, medical, or regulatory frameworks. Yet vulnerability should not be understood as an inherent or essentialist attribute. Rather, it emerges as a contingent phenomenon, constituted and mediated through social structures, institutional arrangements, political economies, and discursive regimes. Vulnerability, in short, is communicatively constructed across multiple scales and contexts.

Symposium details

This symposium brings together scholars from Loughborough University alongside distinguished invited speakers to interrogate the communicative construction of vulnerability and its implications for social organization and collective futures. Drawing on diverse empirical backgrounds—including digital environments, healthcare delivery, justice systems, and educational institutions—panellists will examine the specific communicative practices through which vulnerability is produced, negotiated, and managed. Through this interdisciplinary dialogue, we aim to advance both theoretical understanding and critical reflection on how communication shapes the politics and experience of vulnerability in contemporary society.

List of presenters and titles

Emma Richardson, Laura Jenkins (Loughborough University, Communication and Media, DARG): The interactional production of vulnerability in police investigative interviews: A conversation analytic study

Marc Alexander (Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh): How mental health establishes ‘vulnerability’ as the basis for support from a housing helpline: Self-descriptions and diagnostic categories

Itoitz Rodrigo-Jusue (Loughborough University, International Relations): Counter-radicalisation and the construction of vulnerable individuals in the UK

Kirsty Horsey (Loughborough University, Law School): Assumed vulnerability in surrogacy – the wrong way round?

Jo Sims, Marco Pino, Jessica S. Robles (Loughborough University, Communication and Media, DARG): Vulnerable moments: When patients with life-limiting illnesses show upset in conversations with palliative care professionals

Jessica Nina Lester (Indiana University): On the making of vulnerability: Nonspeaking autistic children and the production of the “speaking” human

Francesca Williamson (University of Michigan): Antiblackness, vulnerability, and interaction in pediatric surgical care

Kathryn Jordin  (Loughborough University, Communication and Media, DARG): Wobbly moments: Exploring caregiver practices to manage upset in UK preschool settings

Cristian Tileaga and Penny Litchfield (Loughborough University, Communication and Media, DARG): Navigating researcher vulnerability during a focused ethnographic research project

Paula Saukko  (Loughborough University, Sociology): Fostering an ethos for supportive communication online: Experiences and challenges of people with eating disorders

Akwugo Emejulu (Sheffield University): Small, necessary acts for liberation

Tickets:

In-person and online tickets available here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/constructing-vulnerability-tickets-1985059749146?aff=oddtdtcreator