Social Assets, Vulnerability and Opportunity Structure. Contributions to the Study of Habitat

Abstract

This article revives contributions from the social vulnerability approach (SVA) in the context of the analysis of poverty studies and subsequent developments, where the relationship between assets, vulnerability and opportunity structure is presented as a field of analysis that reveals the complexity of factors that converge in studies about the living conditions of the subjects, the social and environmental risks to which available resources are exposed, in order to overcome or handle them and the ability to mobilize them against the structure of opportunities that are triggered from different places, and are occasionally driven, held or disseminated by the Government and the market. Within this conceptual framework, the category of habitat is a priority, as it is a field of interactions between humans and society, where forms of life are realized and where these life conditions are reproduced, sustained or transformed; in this respect, special emphasis is made on the contributions that the assets, vulnerability and opportunity structure (AVOS) approach may mean to studies of habitat and the importance of this category for poverty analysis.