Devin Flaherty

DEVIN FLAHERTY, University of Texas, San Antonio, Texas, recieved a grant in October 2021 to aid research on “Anticipating the Next Storm: Constructing Vulnerability in Post-Maria St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.” Who counts as vulnerable, and why? Set in the 5-6 years after Hurricane Maria devastated the island of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands — a super aging society on the periphery of the American Empire — this study investigates how the category of vulnerability is constructed through long-term disaster recovery and preparation. Specifically, the project examines how the category of the “vulnerable old,” an extremely salient one within disaster recovery and preparation efforts, is achieved through the co-construction of “vulnerability” and “oldness.” The study tracks this category’s emergence, meanings, contours and social efficacy across grassroots organizations, federal partners, and local government agencies. It reveals that, in the pervasive neoliberal framework of U.S. disaster recovery, the “vulnerable old” are those who are not properly anticipating future risk — not aligning with sanctioned modes of anticipation and individual preparation — due to sedimented orientations seen and represented as originating in outdated experiences of disasters past. That is, instead of paying the right kind of attention to the future, this social category is defined by almost intransigently paying attention to the past. The study offers a window into what it can mean to be “old and vulnerable” in communities where global aging and climate change are colliding.