Individual and Social Adaptions to Human Vulnerability

Donald C. Wood is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Akita University, Japan.  His recent publications include Ogata-Mura: Sowing Dissent and Reclaiming Identity in a Japanese Farming Village, and he is currently conducting ethnohistorical research in northeastern Japan.

• Introduction: Individual and Social Adaptations to VulnerabilityChapter 1. "We’re Living from Loan to Loan": Pastoral Vulnerability and the Cashmere-Debt Cycle in Mongolia; Daniel J. Murphy Chapter 2. Living Within the Narrative of Microfinance: Vulnerability, Well-Intentioned Debt, and the Individualization of Social Problems in Quito, Equador; Megan B. Hinrichsen Chapter 3. Being an Entrepreneur and Feeling Vulnerable: Encountering Fragility in the Construction Business in the North of Italy; Elena Sischarenco Chapter 4. Coping with Coffee Rust in Oaxaca, Mexico: Vulnerability and the Impact of Fair Trade on Smallholders' Adaptive Capacity; Sarah Lyon Chapter 5. Fishers, Vulnerability and the Political Economy of Dispossession and Reconstruction In Post-Tsunami Tamil Nadu; Raja Swamy Chapter 6. Managing Meagre Means and Reciprocal Reputations: Women's Everyday Survival Tactics in a Malawian Village; Janneke Verheijen Chapter 7. Intimate Economy of Vulnerability: Transactional Relationships Between Western Expatriates and Southeast Asian Domestic Workers in Hong Kong's Wanchai; Lai WoChapter 8. Economic Sovereignty in Volatile Times: Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' Strategies Supporting Economic Stability; Courtney Lewis Chapter 9. American World Visions of Vulnerability: The Sacred, the Secular, and Roots of Evangelical American Aid; Kari B. Henquinet Chapter 10. Socio-Economic Development and Changing Reasons for Using Desert Kites to Kill Gazelles; Serge Svizzero and Clement A. Tisdell

Ten papers explore the essence, causes, effects, continuity, and possible mitigating factors of economic vulnerability in very different circumstances and cultures. The contributors describe the coping mechanisms of Italian entrepreneurs in the volatile construction industry, the impact of fair trade on the response of Mexican coffee growers to the coffee rust problem, shifts in Mongolian herds for cashmere production, and the use of desert kites to kill gazelles.