Faire face ou faire avec. Situations de vulnérabilité et situations de handicap

Abstract

We are all victims when a hazard occurs during a daily trip (strike, breakdown, exceptional climate...), intrinsically unpredictable. But it can make people with cognitive and / or mental disabilities more vulnerable. The semantic distinction between a situation of disability and a situation of vulnerability must here keep its meaning. And the tendency to use synonymously these two notions in the human and social sciences, have to be denounced. We admit and recognize the resilient tactics that people with disabilities implement on a daily basis to compensate for disability thanks to these two different concepts. Synonymously employed, they deny their efforts to move autonomously in an ordinary, undisturbed situation. The interest of this semantic distinction is illustrated by the results of a qualitative survey conducted in 2012-13 in Amiens and Paris. While it is already complex to deal with a situation of disability, facing the hazard that produces the situation of vulnerability is an additional challenge, much less overcomable.

Keywords

• mobility behaviours
• situation of disability
• vulnerability context
• people with cognitive and/or mental deficiencies