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Vulnerability and Marginality
in Human Services
Vulnerability has traditionally been conceived as a dichotomised status,

where an individual by reason of a personal characteristic is classified as
vulnerable or not. However, vulnerability is not static, and most, if not all,
people are vulnerable at some time in their lives. Similarly, marginality is
a social construct linked to power and control. Marginalised populations
are relegated to the perimeters of power by legal and political structures
and limited access to resources. Neither are fixed or essential categories.
This book draws on international research and scholarship related to
these constructs, exploring vulnerability and marginality as they intersect
with power and privilege. This exploration is undertaken through the lenses
of intimacy and sexuality to consider vulnerability and marginality in the
most personal of ways. This includes examining these concepts in relation
to a range of professions, including social work, psychology, nursing, and
allied health. A strong emphasis on the fluidity and complexity of vulner-
ability and marginality across cultures and at different times makes this a
unique contribution to scholarship in this field.
This is essential reading for students and researchers involved with
social work, social policy, sociology, and gender and sexuality studies.
Mark Henrickson is Associate Professor in the School of Social Work,

Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand. His work experience and
research interests are in HIV/AIDS and the communities that have been
most heavily impacted by HIV: sexual and gender minorities, substance
misusers, and the African diaspora.
Christa Fouché is Professor in the School of Counselling, Human Ser-

vices and Social Work, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her work
experience and research interests are in HIV/AIDS, palliative care, chronic
illness, and the organisational context of health and social service delivery.
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Social Work in a Glocalised World

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Vulnerability and Marginality in Human Services

Mark Henrickson and Christa Fouché
Vulnerability and Marginality
in Human Services
Mark Henrickson and Christa Fouché

First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Mark Henrickson and Christa Fouché
The right of Mark Henrickson and Christa Fouché to be identified as authors
of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Henrickson, Mark, 1955– author. | Fouché, C. B. (Christa B.), author.
Title: Vulnerability and marginality in human service / Mark Henrickson
and Christa Fouché.
Other titles: Routledge advances in social work.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. |
Series: Routledge advances in social work | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017003069 | ISBN 9781472476197 (hbk) |
ISBN 9781315547855 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Human services. | Marginality, Social. | Vulnerability
(Personality trait) | Power (Social sciences) | MESH: Social Work—
methods | Attitude of Health Personnel | Vulnerable Populations |
Social Marginalization | Public Policy
Classification: LCC HV40 .H525 2017 | DDC 361—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017003069
ISBN: 978-1-4724-7619-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-54785-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of figures and tablevi

Acknowledgementsvii
1 Why this book? 1
2 Vulnerability and marginality 14
3 Intimacy and sexuality 32
4 Critiquing power and privilege 54
5 Delivery of care: Setting out the challenges 66
6 Restoring the human to human services 79
7 Practice research with vulnerable and marginalised

communities 93
8 Research ethics 105
9 Re-imagining vulnerability and marginality:

Assessing the claims 122
References 135
Index152
Figures and table
Figures
3.1 A three-dimensional matrix of sexual and gender identity 37
3.2 “Not another movie about straight people in love.
I’m sick of extrapolating.” 45
Table
3.1 A sampling of cultural vocabularies of sexual and
gender minorities 36
Acknowledgements
The authors are mindful of the privilege of the many conversations on

vulnerability and marginality over the years with colleagues and students.
These conversations have contributed to developing the ideas in this book.
We are very grateful to both Val Sharpe and Ann Dupuis whose invalu-
able comments on early versions of the manuscript helped to refine our
thinking and clarify our writing. We are also tremendously grateful to our
families whose love and support (and tolerance of our absences) made this
work possible. Thank you Jack, Marcel, and Maryke.
1 Why this book?
The purpose of this book is to explore vulnerability and marginality as

they intersect with power and privilege. We will undertake this exploration
through the lenses of intimacy and sexuality because these lenses allow
us – in fact require us – to consider vulnerability and marginality in the
most personal of ways. Vulnerability and marginality are words and con-
cepts used routinely by politicians, researchers, and health and human ser-
vice professionals around the world. We consider these concepts together
because they are frequently used together to describe, label, and even cre-
ate people at the social and economic margins of societies. These words
are used by power elites to inform policy, and, as we argue, to manage and
control those same people. These words are used popularly and even in
the scholarly literature as though their meanings were obvious and shared.
Yet vulnerability and marginality are complex ideas and, we will argue,
largely created concepts. Neither vulnerability nor marginality is an essen-
tial category. These categories are socially constructed: that is, they are not
biologically determined or innate to a person or family, but exist because
of some shared social values or experiences within a culture, society, or
economic system. Classifications of socially vulnerable and marginalised
people vary from culture to culture, from time to time, and often from
government to government over time within the same nation. Notions of
vulnerability and marginality are constructed by shared social conven-
tions, reinforced by popular discourse – for instance in popular and social
media, business and civil society, religious institutions, and even gossip –
and often by legislation, economic, and social policies and practices at the
local, national, or international level. And of course different disciplines
use the word ‘vulnerable’ in different ways: climate change scholars, for
instance, understand vulnerable persons differently than do public health
practitioners (Delor & Hubert, 2000), nurses (Aday, 2011), or social sci-
ence researchers (Malagón-Oviedo & Czeresnia, 2015).
2 Why this book?
We are motivated to explore this topic and to write this book because of
the ways we have seen the concepts of vulnerability and marginality being
used and misused, particularly in nations where the gap between rich and
poor – wealthy and ‘vulnerable’ – has become a dangerous social, eco-
nomic, and political reality. We are very mindful of the dramatic increase
in so-called marginalised people throughout the world: refugees and eco-
nomic migrants; prisoners; people living in unimaginable poverty; peo-
ple with socially stigmatised diseases and conditions; and ethnic, cultural,
religious, sexual, and gender minorities. Too often in political and popu-
lar discourse the use of the language of vulnerability or marginality has
become a way to label populations at the social and economic margins
of societies and to create these labelled persons as ‘others’. These labels
dehumanise and construct persons as the negative sum of their deficits,
often in moments of crises not of their own making. Such categorical
labels ignore the strengths and resilience of individuals and communities,
and not incidentally also ignore the complicity of political, social, and
economic environments in creating vulnerable persons, and marginalis-
ing them. In this book, we challenge those labels, the process of labelling,
and those with the power to label. We hope in a small way to advance a
discourse of dignity, participation, and freedom.
This book is intended for people in helping roles and for those who edu-
cate them, in order to encourage awareness of the implications of the way
we use the categorical labels of vulnerability and marginality, and to critique
such simplistic taxonomy. If we accomplish nothing else with this book, we
hope that we will encourage practice professionals to think critically about
the way they use these words and concepts to describe and categorise their
clients. This book is also intended for people who influence practice and
social policy, such as social researchers, research ethicists, and agencies
that fund research. Research with so-called vulnerable and marginalised
persons is often considered too risky, too difficult, or too expensive, and
vulnerable and marginalised people can be unnecessarily excluded from
research, and their needs unknown, ignored, or even suppressed, often with
the best of intentions, to ‘protect’ individuals from any hypothetical harm
posed by researchers. Exclusion, we shall propose, creates more risk than
the careful inclusion of so-called vulnerable and marginalised people in
research. Two chapters of this book are specifically intended to highlight
considerations for research with vulnerable and marginalised individuals
and communities, and the ethical implications of such research.
It has been said (and attributed in various forms to Aristotle, Samuel
Johnson, Gandhi, and others) that a society may be judged by the way it
Why this book? 3
treats its most vulnerable members. There is little doubt that we, at least
in the industrialised West (and to a lesser extent in emerging capitalist
economies), are living in a neoliberal age where residualist notions of pri-
vatisation and profit prevail over institutionalist notions of social protec-
tion as a right. This attitude, in our view, puts a price on vulnerability and
marginality, which increases rather than decreases the risk to the state. It
certainly decreases choice and the quality of life of so-called vulnerable
and marginalised persons, such as older persons in residential care. Mind-
ful that the gloss is wearing thin off neoliberal claims, this book seeks to
contribute to these discussions. We do not seek to contribute directly to
the discourses of poverty and economic marginalisation because there are
an ever-growing number of international economic experts in this area
writing for other economists and policymakers; we want to speak with our
colleagues, practitioners, and researchers who work at the coalface.
We as authors bring to this project our own experiences of vulnerability
and marginality, and of working with and researching communities and
persons who are labelled as vulnerable and marginalised. We recognise
that to a certain extent we write from positions of privilege: we live in a
society of laws and social protections; we are fed, sheltered, and educated;
we are employed. These advantages do not disqualify us from the explora-
tions found in this book, but rather impose an opportunity and an obliga-
tion to advocate for persons classified as vulnerable or marginalised, who,
we shall suggest, could be anyone at any time. We also recognise that we
may from time to time use the taxonomy of ‘vulnerable’ and ‘marginal-
ised’ as categorical terms, which seems to contradict exactly the point we
are trying to make. This is a limitation of language, and with these terms
we mean ‘anyone who is or has been or may be vulnerable or marginalised
at any point in her, his, or their life’. We acknowledge the awkwardness of
this phrasing, but it seems the best that English syntax can do.
In this book, we will consider concepts of vulnerability and marginality
particularly through the lenses of intimacy and sexuality, which we will
introduce further below. We have chosen this perspective in part because
it is one with which we are most familiar, but mostly because these are
the most personal arenas of an individual’s life and allow us to consider
vulnerability and marginality in the most personal of ways. There is no
touch more intimate than the caress of a lover; we are never more emo-
tionally vulnerable than when we meaningfully say ‘I love you’. Intimacy
and sexuality are the areas where we are most open to other people, and
therefore the places where we are most at risk of being hurt and even
abused by other people, including, unfortunately, professionals and other
4 Why this book?
human services providers. We hear too often (and even once is too often)
of cases of sexual abuse or violation where a physician, social worker,
prison guard, or teacher has violated professional boundaries, misused
their power and status, and sexually violated someone in their care. Con-
sequently, intimacy and sexuality have become some of the most tightly
regulated areas of human service work, in the name of protecting vulner-
able persons. At the same time, older persons in residential care may rarely
if ever be touched by anyone, and then only in the most clinical ways by
their caregivers. They may long for the experience of a caring touch or
a loving, intimate caress. Intimacy and sexuality are also areas that are
highly regulated in every society, both formally and informally. They are
areas where politicians and religious leaders delineate what constitutes
morally and publicly acceptable expressions of gender and sexuality, and
likewise, gossipers and religious and social leaders ensure that prevailing
social norms and mores are enforced through labelling, social exclusion,
and redemption.
Engaging the terms

In economically developed societies, vulnerability and marginality are
overlapping but not synonymous categories: there are some people who
are vulnerable who are not necessarily marginalised (such as a middle-
class child with a life-threatening disease, or a wealthy businessman who
has had a heart attack while playing golf), and some people who are mar-
ginalised who are not inherently vulnerable (such as political activists,
or educated gay and lesbian people who demand full equality and legal
protections within a society). However, in developed societies, there are
some people who have been made both vulnerable and marginalised, such
as homeless persons, people with substance misuse or addiction issues,
the very poor who are also sick, people living with mental illnesses, and
people living with HIV. This last group is particularly interesting and rel-
evant for this discussion. People living with HIV are vulnerable because
for the most part they rely on medications paid for or subsidised by gov-
ernments (or insurers), but at the same time are marginalised in many
cultures because of assumptions about how they became infected – that
is, through some illegal or socially devalued sexual behaviours or rela-
tionships (whether or not this is true), or because they are poor. In some
societies, diagnosis with HIV is itself prima facie evidence of a morally
unacceptable lifestyle, even where the individual is living a life that fully
conforms to dominant social mores.
Why this book? 5
Creating the other
Fundamental to these discourses in the 21st century is the presumption
that vulnerable and marginalised persons are cultural others. From a his-
torical perspective, this is a relatively recent presumption, which has been
attributed to the rise of liberal humanism in the 16th and 17th centuries in
European cultures (Harari, 2011). Liberal humanism emerged as the influ-
ence of the church waned and empirical science emerged as the dominant
worldview. This worldview relocated the divine spirit from some numinous
Other1 that dwells above or beyond mortals to the individual. It holds that
the sacred resides not ‘out there’, but rather within each and every human,
and therefore individuals – rather than, or even in preference to, commu-
nities or societies – merit protection. This liberal notion runs counter to
historical Western notions of how to treat the poor, which are founded in
the so-called Deuteronomic Principle of Judaeo-Christian scripture. That
principle was quite simple: if you do good (by being obedient to the laws,
statutes, and ordinances of the numinous Other), you will be rewarded,
and if you do evil (by being disobedient), you will be punished (see, for
example, Deuteronomy 7:12, 28:1–22). Parents throughout the ages have
used this principle to ensure good behaviour by their children: remember
that Santa Claus is coming to town. To be rewarded was to be wealthy,
healthy, and to have many children; to be punished was to be poor, sick,
and childless. It was a short, if not logical, leap to assume that people who
were wealthy, healthy, and had many children were particularly blessed,
and therefore must be good people; and those who were poor, sick, and
childless were being punished, and therefore must be bad people.2 The
Enlightenment Scottish moral philosopher and economist Adam Smith
proposed that it was individual envy and admiration of the wealthy that
formed the basis of both economics and a shared social morality. It is only
when the poor annoy the wealthy or become a risk to public order that the
state takes an interest in them. In the 1980s, for instance, we heard about
children with HIV as the ‘innocent victims’ of AIDS, implying that other
people with AIDS were guilty of something. It was the putative innocence
of children, haemophiliacs, and faithful non-drug using partners with HIV
who spurred legislatures into action in response to HIV, not the ‘guilty
victims’ – gay men, injecting drug users, sex workers. In the simplistic
Deuteronomic worldview, providing assistance to the poor was to interfere
with divine justice. Despite the story of Job (and most of the New Testa-
ment), this Deuteronomic attitude seems to have informed Christianised
Europe’s practices and policies about poor, vulnerable, and marginalised
6 Why this book?
persons until the rise of liberal humanism. Indeed, the Deuteronomic atti-
tude appears to be an underlying assumption of neoliberal economies even
today, where, as scholars like Rubin, Wacquant, and Higuchi maintain,
the neoliberal state punishes the poor for being poor by imprisoning them,
or highly regulating them with punitive practices short of incarceration
(Rubin, 2011; Wacquant, 2010), even if that poverty is the result of state
policies (Higuchi, 2004/2014).
Vulnerability
Liberal humanism, with roots in the European scientific revolution and
capitalism, was spread through imperial conquest and colonialism, and
ultimately imposed on or adopted by many non-European civilisations.
However, it is in European liberal humanist values that we find the origins
of professions like social work, which may explain why social work has
grown in countries more heavily influenced by European values (such as
the Nordic, English, and Spanish-speaking nations), and why it looks quite
different in countries less influenced by those values (such as East and
Southeast Asia). Liberal humanism and the construction of vulnerability
as a category have led to the siloing of legislation, funding, care and prac-
tice, and in research and ethical models. We in liberal humanist societies
now segregate people according to their perceived or socially constructed
vulnerability. Aday’s seminal work in nursing, for instance, specifies vul-
nerable populations in America as high risk mothers and infants; chroni-
cally ill and disabled persons; persons living with HIV; mentally ill and
disabled persons; alcohol or substance abusers; suicide or homicide prone
persons; abusing families; homeless persons; and immigrants and refugees
(Aday, 2011, pp. 12–13). In other words, people are socially constructed as
vulnerable because of some inherent characteristic over which they have
little or no control yet require some kind of public response. The words
‘vulnerable’ and ‘at risk’ are often used by powerful elites interchange-
ably, with the implication that vulnerable persons are at risk for something
dire that will have negative consequences for their physical or emotional
wellbeing. Yet, as we shall suggest, it is the status quo of the state itself
and its control over the unruly poor that may be most at risk. In neoliberal
environments, we find a mix of the old Deuteronomic attitudes combined
with liberal humanism to create something of a pastiche of approaches to
vulnerable persons: if the individual is ‘innocent’ – that is, their vulner-
ability is not due to their own perceived failings – then they may have
access to more public assistance and sympathy. But if they are perceived
Why this book? 7
to be at fault, then they will be stigmatised and treated as sinners who must
prove their value to society (by, for instance, working, or training to work).
Marginality
In some ways, ‘the marginalised’ are the shadow side of ‘the vulnerable’.
Marginality has been defined as “an involuntary position and condition
of an individual or group at the margins of social, political, economic,
ecological, and biophysical systems, that prevent them from access to

resources, assets, services, restraining freedom of choice, preventing the
development of capabilities, and eventually causing extreme poverty”
(von Braun & Gatzweiler, 2014, p. 3). Exclusion is an indication of the
extremely poor being at the margins of society, and in many cases, mar-
ginality is a root cause of poverty, and vice-versa. An obvious example of
this construction of marginality is indigenous peoples who have been dis-
possessed from their traditional lands, customs, and traditions as a result
of colonisation, government policies, and social attitudes, and who now
endure a shocking proportion of social challenges in their post-colonial
nations.3 Marginality and social exclusion can be used synonymously.
Marginalised persons and communities are relegated to the margins of cul-
tures, nations, and global societies based on their perceived social value.
People and communities who have characteristics that are less valued, or
who are socially constructed as undesirable, inhabit the fringes of socie-
ties: this may be because of caste, religion, heritage, sexuality or gen-
der, domicile, or occupation (such as the Dalit of India, the hijra of South
Asia, funeral workers who handle dead bodies in East Asian cultures, drag
queens, or homeless persons and sex workers in most cultures). Certainly
most marginalised people are also in many ways vulnerable, particularly
to poverty, illness, violence, and social exclusion.
Intimacy
Intimacy is one of those things, like art, where we may not be able to
define it, but we know it when we see it, or at least when we experience
it. On the most superficial level, intimacy has to do with close personal
relationships. Intimacy involves a subject – the self – and an object – the
other – an ‘it’ with whom the subject enters a relationship. We may enter
into these proximate relationships with varying degrees of subjectivity,
and eventually an ‘it’, which we encounter and classify through daily
experiences, can, when we become truly human, and encounter the other
8 Why this book?
as truly human, evolve into a ‘Thou’ (Buber, 1923/1937). Intimacy can be
a body experience: “To become intimate with someone else, usually, tends
to either be mediated through or focussed on the body” (Cole, 2014, p. 87).
Certainly intense non-body intimacy can exist in genuinely celibate com-
munities such as monasteries and convents, where souls are bared at the
most profound level but there is no physical contact so that the intimate is
not confused with the sexual. More recently, we might consider the kind
of pseudo-intimacy found in social media, which may involve the disclo-
sure of a great deal of personal information to a largely anonymous public

audience, but here intimacy is rarely, if ever, reciprocated and mutual inti-
macy is at best unlikely. (That said, we are mindful of the array of dating
and hook-up apps that have emerged to facilitate intimate contact between
individuals, but these are a kind of marketplace intimacy that is an elec-
tronic heir to dance halls and discos, bars and pubs, and singles nights at
selected grocery stores.)
Sexuality
Popularly, intimacy has become conflated, and is often used interchange-
ably with or as a Bowdlerised term for sexuality: a bodily experience of
some kind of relationship however fleeting or enduring. Sexuality is dif-
ferent from intimacy, at least in the way we shall use this word here. Dunk-
West and Hafford-Letchfield describe sexuality as an umbrella term that
“relates to the private dimension in which people live out their sexual,
intimate and/or emotional desires” (2011, p. 2). Sex can be the culmina-
tion of, and an ultimate expression of, intimacy, but it can also be degraded
to being almost devoid of it. Common use of the concept of sexuality
implies sexual behaviour, including penetrative intercourse and the array
of fetishes and fantasies that fill human imaginations. But sexuality is also
a concept that has come to mean something entirely separate from behav-
iour: identity. In contemporary discourse, and in this book, sexuality has
to do with the way an individual understands themselves in the context of
their anatomy, physical attraction to others (desire), and emotional attrac-
tion to others (falling in love). Occasionally, fantasies, including day-
dreams and night-time dreams, are included in this list, although we have
discovered that this is not always relevant or useful, and can add to the
confusion rather than the clarification of sexuality. All of these elements
combine together in various ways to create something that is understood
as sexual identity. Identity, then, is much more important than behaviours,
and even relationships: it is a way an individual understands themselves
Why this book? 9
as a whole person. This ‘private dimension’ also has a public dimension:
as we shall explore in some detail in Chapter 3, some sexualities are val-
ued more highly than others, depending on social, cultural, and political
context, and the management of variant sexualities can range from indif-
ference to public execution.
The focus and structure of this book

This book critiques and challenges the notion of objectively classifying

people into ‘the vulnerable’ or ‘the marginal’; instead it recognises that we
can all be vulnerable and we can all be marginalised depending on the cir-
cumstances in which we find ourselves. A perfectly healthy middle-aged,
middle-class politician walking down the street may suddenly be struck
by a bus, and rendered unconscious. The status of that person changes
from ‘not vulnerable’ to ‘vulnerable’ in an eyeblink, and that person is
now entirely reliant on the kindness of strangers and whatever medical
care system may respond. Likewise, a status of ‘marginalised’ may change
according to circumstance or government policy: a well-educated or high-
status person may choose to migrate with their family from one country
to another to improve opportunities for their children; they may not speak
the new language fluently, understand the health or political system, or
find a job commensurate with their abilities because of racism, ethnocen-
trism, or xenophobia. That person has moved from ‘not marginalised’ to
‘marginalised’ because of their relocation to a different cultural context.
Likewise, indigenous peoples who are forced by policy or circumstance
to relocate from traditional lands to urban or non-traditional environments
will experience a similar dislocation and reconceptualisation of self. States
and elites such as religious authorities claim the power and privilege to
manage the status of vulnerable and marginalised persons such as sexual
or gender minorities: within a generation, for instance, in some countries,
gay and lesbian people have moved from criminality to marriage equality,
from the margins to the mainstream; in other countries, of course, they
remain socially and legally very vulnerable to arrest, torture, violence,
and death. This book asserts that vulnerability and marginality are fluid
categories, and that they are layered categories: that is, there are many
contributors to vulnerability and marginality, and different contributors
may feature at different times and places because of the power claimed by
privileged elites.
In the current neoliberal environment, social protection institutions and
organisations have become risk-management and risk-averse organisations,
10 Why this book?
driven by constructed notions of marginality and vulnerability. This
approach fails to recognise that most individuals are highly resilient and
capable of living meaningful lives and engaging in healthy and intimate
relationships whatever their challenges or stage of life. In practice, risk
aversion means that institutions that provide care can become manual-
ised, highly regulated, problem-focussed environments with particular,
binary constructions of gender and sexuality, which stifle resourcefulness
and relationships. This in turn can mean that these institutions become
warehouses of palliation and management of risk, rather than places that

invite energy, life-enhancement, and reinvestment in living. Writing with a
firm foothold in the liberal humanist tradition, we will propose in its place
strength-based (Saleebey, 2002), salutogenic (Greene & Cohen, 2005),
and negotiated care approaches (McCormack, 2003). These approaches
focus on strengths, health, and possibilities, rather than deficits, and sup-
port the discovery of meaningfulness in life at whatever age and with
whatever ability. At the same time, negotiated care approaches recognise
that resources are not unlimited, and that choices must be made by both
client and care provider. Recognising that resources are limited does not
imply that the care provider must simply accept resources as they are.
Providers can and should advocate for the maximum possible resources
to provide the best possible care. Nevertheless, resources will never be
unlimited, and choices will always need to be made.
The shared background of the authors is social work, although we come
to social work from very different contexts and experiences. Social work,
however, has a values system that is, at least in theory, shared by all social
workers around the world. These values include social change and devel-
opment, social cohesion, empowerment and liberation of people, social
justice, human rights, collective responsibility, and respect for diversities.
Social work also draws on theoretical foundations in the social sciences,
humanities, and indigenous communities as well as its own research and
theoretical framework (International Association of Schools of Social
Work & International Federation of Social Work, 2014). It is this con-
text and these values that inform the framework and arguments of this
book. In Chapter 2, we consider more carefully and in depth the concepts
of vulnerability and marginality, and the social construction of these con-
cepts. In Chapter 3, we will explore what we mean by intimacy and its
more fraught sibling sexuality, and consider the contemporary construc-
tion of diverse sexualities and genders as continua, rather than as more
traditional either/or binaries. The very act of labelling someone as vulner-
able or marginalised confers privilege, yet the nature of such privilege is
Why this book? 11
such that it is difficult or impossible to conceptualise outside that privilege,
or even to recognise that one is privileged. In Chapter 4, we will define
the problems and challenges of power and privilege, particularly as found
in neoliberal policy environments. Chapter 5 considers contexts of care,
and considers in more depth the challenge of being problem or deficit-
focussed. A deficit-focussed perspective results in vulnerable and margin-
alised persons themselves being problematised by practitioners and care
workers who define them as vulnerable or marginalised. In Chapter 6, we
consider alternatives to the challenge of risk-focussed care identified in

Chapter 5; that is, to develop and explore human-centred approaches that
build on individual and community strengths rather than on their labelled
problems and ‘deficits’. We will explore the notion that access to resources
and power is not binary (you either have resources, or you do not), but sca-
lar; that is, people have different access to different kinds of resources and
power depending on circumstance and social and political context.
In Chapter 7, we turn our attention to research, and will examine the
relationship between the researcher and individuals and communities that
experience vulnerability and marginality. Challenges and strategies to
engage with research participants, ethics committees, and other core stake-
holders in designing research with vulnerable and marginalised popula-
tions will be our focus in Chapter 8. In this chapter, we will raise questions
about partnerships between communities, researchers, and ethical review
committees, and consider unintentional harm that may be imposed in the
processes designed to protect so-called vulnerable persons. And finally, in
Chapter 9, we will consider ways to evaluate the claims that we make, and
critique the currently dominant notions of accountability, effectiveness,
and efficiency as desirable ‘outcome’ measures.
At the end of each chapter, we pose a series of key questions based on
points in the chapter that can be used for individual reflection or discussion
with communities of practice, study groups, or students. These questions
pick up key themes in each chapter, and will be helpful for practition-
ers who are undertaking continuing education as part of their professional
development, or who participate in journal clubs, for advanced students
who are part of study groups, or for educators and researchers facilitat-
ing these discussions. The questions are intended to help initiate thought-
ful discussions. Where such discussions go will, of course, be up to the
participants!
It would be understating it to say that the development of this book has
challenged our own notions of practice, research, and ethics, and we fully
expect – and hope – that it will challenge readers. We do not need to be
12 Why this book?
right about everything we propose, but we do hope to encourage readers
to make more thoughtful and considered decisions. We expect that there
will be points of controversy and even resistance, especially among prac-
titioners and managers who have been trained to think of vulnerable and
marginalised others as broken and powerless, and who therefore require
management, and who also must respond to their policy masters in country
capitals. Other readers may find themselves nodding in agreement. Our
hope is that this book will encourage new thinking and creativity in the
ways we as social workers and other human service providers, educators,

and researchers conceptualise vulnerability, marginality, intimacy, and
sexuality, and even in the ways we conceptualise ourselves.
Notes
1 Because of the limitation of language, we have ended up using the word ‘other’
in two ways. As we explain, the numinous ‘Other’ (with a capital O) is intended
to refer to the divine power of the universe; ‘other’ with a lower case ‘o’ refers
to people who are constructed as different, or less than, those who have the
power to label them. It can be both noun and verb.
2 This notion, of course, ignores the rich literature of theodicy through the cen-
turies, and particularly post Holocaust-Hiroshima, an exploration of which is
beyond the scope of this discussion.
3 Definitions of ‘indigenous’ and ‘poverty’ are fungible. One major recent study
suggests that although indigenous peoples constitute only about 5 percent of
the global population, they make up 15 percent of the world’s poor (Hall &
Patrinos, 2012). In Australia, indigenous peoples (Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islanders) have markedly poorer indicators than the general population in infant
mortality, child abuse and neglect, juvenile detention, education and employ-
ment, chronic diseases, suicide and youth suicide, and life expectancy and
mortality (Australians Together, n.d., citing data from 2014). Native Americans
have higher rates of poverty, poor housing, chronic disease, and youth suicide
than the general population (NoiseCat, 2015). In Mexico, 72 percent of indig-
enous peoples live in extreme poverty (Underwood, 2014). On the other hand,
while absolute numbers remain very large, of course, China seems to be making
significant progress in improving the conditions of poverty among indigenous
peoples (Hall & Patrinos, 2012).
Why this book? 13
Key questions for Chapter 1
We invite you to reflect on your position on some of the key issues

raised in this chapter. Your answers may be quite different from our
viewpoints – that is OK with us. The important thing is that each of
us reflects critically on these issues.
As you begin this book, we invite you to reflect on how you have
defined vulnerability and marginality in your practice or work.
• Who is a vulnerable person?

• Who is a marginalised person?
• What have you been taught, either formally or informally, about
how to work with vulnerable and marginalised persons?
• How do you describe intimacy?
• How do you describe sexuality?
• To what extent do you think intimacy and sexuality should be
considered in your professional practice with individuals?
2 Vulnerability and marginality
In the first chapter, we proposed that vulnerable and marginalised per-

sons are constructed as cultural others – that is, that popular discourse,
international agreements such as the Declaration of Helsinki (World Medi-
cal Association, 1964/2013), declarations such as the UNESCO Univer-
sal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2006), and occasionally
country-specific legislation such as New Zealand’s Vulnerable Children
Act (2014) hold or imply that there is something ontologically different
about vulnerable and marginalised people from everyone else. This is at
variance with notions of vulnerability that hold that vulnerability is always
contextual (e.g., Luna, 2009) and usually created. This chapter will con-
sider a working understanding of vulnerability in practice and in research.
We propose that vulnerability is not a class of persons, but a mutable, con-
textual, and layered construct that may apply to individual persons (and
communities) from time to time, depending on circumstances and espe-
cially relationships. Nor, we propose, is vulnerability a durably definable
characteristic of persons; it may change over time (Brown, 2014), and
with fashions in economic and social policy. We suggest that the language
of vulnerability has evolved into a category of persons because of policy
and organisational convenience, and as a method of social control. It is
easier and more expedient to talk about disempowered categories of per-
sons rather than the messy business of individual persons with complex
lives. However, some authors, particularly in the field of bioethics and
medical research, argue that notions of vulnerability are appropriate for
classes of persons (e.g., Hurst, 2008). We will consider the issue of resil-
ience as the ‘flip side’ of vulnerability. Later in this chapter, we also con-
sider contemporary understandings about marginality, which we propose
again has to do with social control, and the ability – that is, the power – to
label. Finally, this chapter will invite readers to examine their personal
Vulnerability and marginality 15
and professional attitudes about vulnerability and marginality in order to
critique the sources of these attitudes and values, and explore ways to
assess vulnerability and marginality as culturally constructed and an inher-
ent characteristic of particular individuals at particular moments in time.
Vulnerability
Human vulnerability as a concept appears mostly in the social sciences,
environmental, health, and ethical literature. The contemporary literature

has proposed that vulnerability is not static, and that most, if not all, people
are vulnerable in some way at some time in their lives (Martin, Tavagli-
one, & Hurst, 2014); indeed, vulnerability is inherent (Meek Lange, Rog-
ers, & Dodds, 2013) to the essential human condition (Callahan, 2000;
Kottow, 2003). Vulnerability has been described as the susceptibility to
being harmed, and occurs at the intersection between threat and resilience
(Adger, 2006). We will develop the concept of resilience more below.
Humans are vulnerable by nature: our vulnerability is linked to having
a physical body and being mortal (Gert, 2004). It is no coincidence that
the powers of superheroes usually include invincibility – the antithesis of
vulnerability – but frequently also include a singular point of vulnerability
in order to make them more human. Disasters and catastrophes serve to
highlight human frailty and vulnerability (Martin, Tavaglione, & Hurst,
2014). Writing from a climate-change perspective, Adger proposes that
“Vulnerability is the degree to which a system is susceptible to and is
unable to cope with adverse effects (of climate change)” (p. 269). In all
formulations, the key parameters of human vulnerability are susceptibility,
the stressors to which a system is exposed, the sensitivity of a system (or
individual), and adaptive capacity. Thus, vulnerability research and resil-
ience research have common elements of interest – the shocks and stresses
experienced by the socio-ecological system, the response of the system or
community, and the capacity for adaptive action in the interest of self by
the individual, community, or system (Adger, 2006, p. 269).
In practice, “[Vulnerability] can operate as a gateway to extra assistance,
but also as an entry point for social control” (Brown, 2014, p. 382). Identi-
fying persons as vulnerable can lead to increased resources or protections
(Fawcett, 2009; Finlayson, 2015), but can also lead to increased social
control. Methods of social control can manifest by excluding or denying
resources to people who are perceived as socially deviant, with the implica-
tion that only people who behave acceptably merit support and assistance.
Brown (2014) has suggested that there is a ‘vulnerability-transgression
nexus’ at the intersection between vulnerability and challenging and dif-
ficult behaviours, such as may be found in young people in state care who
also exhibit so-called ‘non-compliant’ or transgressive behaviours. There
may be a kind of artifice of vulnerability, where some people may take
on the role of a vulnerable person in order to obtain access to additional
resources, attention, or protection. To be sure, such ‘false’ vulnerability
does not exclude the likelihood that there are very real vulnerabilities that
exist below the veneer of transgression and tough behaviour, but these pro-
found vulnerabilities are well protected and concealed. An artifice of vul-

nerability also suggests that even ‘false’ or ‘pathogenic’ vulnerability can
manipulate authority and create a gateway to extra assistance, protection,
or privileges (Meek Lange, Rogers, & Dodds, 2013). This extra assistance,
however, will often come with the hidden hook of social control, where the
individual must comply with the rules and regulations of those in power
and authority, and so the vulnerability cycle may continue.
There are individuals and groups of people that everyone may agree
are entirely vulnerable. This vulnerability is related to the ability to moti-
vate, access, or take advantage of resources that they need, even if those
resources are fully provided. An example of such a person is an infant,
who is completely helpless and unable to motivate any resources in their
environment; the infant is entirely at the mercy of the caregivers around
them. We might say they are absolutely vulnerable. This kind of vulner-
ability can be transitional – an infant will grow to be an independent adult,
for instance – or it may be permanent: a person may suffer permanent brain
damage or be intellectually impaired, or unable to take care of themselves
for their entire life. However, other than these special classes of persons,
we propose that under conditions of unlimited resource, there would be no
vulnerable people. What, then, about the refugee who is fleeing an unbear-
able conflict in their home country or region? Arguably, refugees, although
often enduring unimaginable suffering, are at least able to do something
for themselves; they may be victims of a gross injustice, but they have the
ability to leave (even though this may be a dreadful option, but unlike the
infant, they still can do something for themselves) and resettle. We might
say that they are relatively vulnerable. What we notice here then is that vul-
nerability is scalar – there is a scale of ability to motivate, access, and take
advantage of resources. Yet the more the individual accesses resources, the
more the individual is vulnerable to social control. As we write, the great-
est influx of refugees since World War II is moving across Europe, fleeing
the conflicts brought about by religious sectarianism in the Middle East
and South Asia. These refugees are enduring unimaginable hardship, but
are still able to move from the conflicts in their homelands to seek refuge
in more stable countries. Yet when these refugees enter the new states,
they become subject to the states’ limitations on the resources available to
them, up to and including deportation back to their home countries. Vul-
nerability is a kind of constant bargain, then, between accessing resources
and becoming subject to social control.
There are some economies that create contexts whereby ‘vulnerable’
individuals must behave in antisocial ways in order to gain access to
resources. These economies and policy environments – our now-familiar

nemesis neoliberalism, for instance – create the very kinds of behaviours
that they attempt to prevent and punish. Arguments for labelling vulner-
able and highly vulnerable persons have been called inadequate because
they lack the notion of justice, including fairness in the distribution of
goods and resources, which would address systematic oppression such as
exploitation, marginalisation, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and
violence (Bamford, 2014, p. 39, citing Young). Such critiques argue that
we should think of justice as involving the conditions necessary for the
development and exercise of individual capacities, collective communica-
tion, and cooperation (Young, 1990), thereby ensuring that we promote
values of social justice. There is, then, a connection between vulnerability
and social and economic justice. People with equal access to resources
and the ability to exercise that access are far less likely to be labelled as
‘vulnerable’ than people with less access. Access to resources is a matter
of distributive justice, which is strongly associated with social justice.
We can see that vulnerability has everything to do with access to power
and resources. If the power and resources (including my personal resil-
ience) to which I have access are greater than the threat with which I am
confronted, I am not vulnerable; if they are less than that threat, then I am
vulnerable. If I need resources to which you have access, then in relation
to you (and perhaps only in relation to you), I am vulnerable. If I need
resources to which you have access and you require me to behave in a
certain way in order to grant access, then you have made me vulnerable.
If resources are denied to classes of people, then the power to deny those
resources has created an injustice, and a class of vulnerable persons. The
determination of vulnerability lies not with the individual or community
under threat, but with those people in power who create justice, and con-
trol resources and access to those resources.
Vulnerability is not only not a binary status (vulnerable/invulnerable),
it is layered (Luna, 2014): that is, there are multifarious contributors to
vulnerability. Furthermore, an individual or community (or even a nation)
may have multiple vulnerabilities, or at least have a variety of vulnerable
facets to their lives. Vulnerability is manifest in specific places at specific
times: the threshold between vulnerability and wellbeing is not the same
for all sections of society, and because this threshold is based on values
and preferences, it is institutionally and culturally determined and requires
external judgments and interpretations (Adger, 2006, p. 276). I may have
an intellectual impairment and a chronic life-threatening disease; I may
be unemployed, lesbian, and physically disabled and require assistance
in activities of daily living. I may not speak the dominant language and
belong to a minority religion and have a physical disability; I may have
just been the victim of a crime and have an intellectual impairment and be
very old. But I also may be physically disabled and live in a society where
access to all public facilities is mandatory, and therefore ramps and aids
for the visually and hearing impaired are abundant. I may live in a society
where anti-discrimination laws are so embedded that my being a lesbian
is not noteworthy. I may have unimpeded access to health and home care,
in which case what may have been significant vulnerabilities in one cul-
ture fall below the threshold of risk in the utopian society in which I find
myself. In these ways, the complexity of vulnerability can be analysed,
measured, and assessed (Delor & Hubert, 2000).
Likewise, we can also say that vulnerability is contextual: it is as much
culturally constructed as it is an inherent characteristic of an individual at
a moment in time. A person who is disempowered in one culture because
of, say, their ethnicity, skin colour, age, or sexual identity may be highly
valued in another for exactly those characteristics. Vulnerability is highly
mutable, then, and contributors to vulnerability shift throughout an indi-
vidual’s life, as well as historically and culturally. Vulnerability is created
when social institutions and helpers triage individuals because of actual
or perceived limits on resources. By requiring unemployed persons to
account for their time in socially valued ways (such as in work or educa-
tion), governments seek to protect the finite resources of the national treas-
ury; at the same time, by requiring all unemployed persons to work, they
may be applying the template of less valued on persons who are physically,
mentally, or otherwise unable to work. Governments also thereby place a
value on certain kinds of work (such as manufacturing, agriculture, or IT
consultant), and devalue other kinds of work (such as child rearing, caring
for disabled family members, or doing the food shopping for the family).
The label of vulnerability is also used as an explanatory tool for referring
to situations that suggest that these are not the ‘fault’ of the individual or
group concerned. If I have been struck by a car driven by a drunk driver, or
was born with a physical disability, I am in a class of vulnerable persons,
even though I was not responsible for either of these things. There are
moral connotations attached to the term ‘vulnerable’ and its potential to
elicit sympathy; we may believe that children and the very old are vulner-
able, and therefore should be offered special care and protection, although
we may view a young adult with exactly the same intellectual and physi-
cal capacities in a less sympathetic way. If I was hit by a drunk driver, but
I was also drunk at the time, even though I was ‘vulnerable’, less value is
placed on my vulnerability because I will in some way be deemed culpa-

ble. How many times have we been told that someone has lung cancer, to
which our first question is ‘Did he smoke?’, as though smoking somehow
confers a kind of moral culpability, and therefore less vulnerability, to the
smoker. Vulnerability has a strong paternalistic quality (Brown, 2014).
If you label me as vulnerable, then you not only assume certain obliga-
tions over me to take care of me, you also assume certain rights to tell me
how to behave, what my income should be, what life ambitions are and
are not achievable, and so forth. Why would we find the achievement of
Mark Inglis, the first double amputee to reach the summit of Mt Everest/
Chomolungma, so impressive if we did not believe it was not possible for
him in the first place? While this achievement may be more an example of
resilience and the ability to motivate resources, the fact that it was widely
reported in the media suggests that it was perceived as the accomplishment
of a vulnerable person.
Vulnerability and resilience

If vulnerability has to do with access to resources and the (in)ability to use
those resources when confronted by threat, then vulnerability is linked with
resilience. Resilience is variously defined, but in general has to do with
the ability of an individual, organisation, or community to use resources
to resile or spring back to its original form following an adverse stress.
Resilience is a very complex topic (Liebenberg & Ungar, 2009; Windle,
2011), and a full exploration of the various aspects of resilience would
take us down a rabbit hole that leads us far afield from the topics at hand.
If an individual is particularly vulnerable to natural disasters – typhoons or
severe erosion, say – but has access to sufficient resources and the ability
to use those resources – strong building materials, or access to refuge –
then the vulnerability to the environment is mitigated by those resources.
If an individual is socially vulnerable, but has access to sufficient social
support – such as a strong social network – then that social vulnerability is
mitigated by those resources and the resilience of the individual’s ability
to use those resources.
In this way, we can conceptualise vulnerability as embedded in the con-
struct of the ecology of the individual: the person in the context of their
environment, and their ability to utilise the advantages of their environ-
ment in a resilient way. It has become axiomatic to say that during natural
or anthropogenic disasters (such as crashes, explosions, and environmen-
tal degradation), it is the poor who suffer most: it is tautological to say
that it is the poor who have the least access to resources, but in the context
of discussions about resilience, it is important to restate it. People who
are poor are most vulnerable to the effects of disaster because they have
the least access to resources to cope with the disaster. Climate change
and disaster experts now increasingly understand that social concepts of
vulnerability and resilience are important in discussions of disasters. The
people of Kiribati, a particularly low-lying Pacific atoll nation, are making
plans to abandon their homeland because of the rising sea levels due to
global climate change. Kiribati is not a rich nation by any means, and the
people cannot afford to build taller structures: they can only plan to leave.
The same can be said about people in socially vulnerable situations: a
woman in an abusive relationship who does not have access to transporta-
tion, alternative accommodation, or legal support is much more vulnerable
than a woman who has or is able to negotiate access to those resources;
an injection drug user who is criminalised and denied access to sterile
injecting equipment is much more vulnerable to arrest and disease than an
injection drug user who lives in a legal environment where public health is
prioritised over stigma about drug use. But simply because an individual is
stigmatised, or even multiply stigmatised, does not mean that they are not
resilient, as found by a study of African American sexual minority female
sex workers in Florida, USA (Buttram, Surratt, & Kurtz, 2014).
Resilience, of course, has to do with psychosocial as well as economic
resources. Since the emergence of strength-based perspectives and prac-
tice models (Saleebey, 2002), there has been a broad theoretical shift from
a deficit perspective to the strengths perspective in the practices of many
helping disciplines. Much resilience research has been done by develop-
mental psychology in children and adolescents, but recently more work has
considered resilience in specific population groups such as sexual minority
adolescents (Gwadz et al., 2006), elders (Rosowsky, 2009), sexual minor-
ity elders (Butler, 2004), and people living with HIV (Poindexter & Shippy,
2008) to name but a few examples. Resilience research and practice recog-
nises that given the opportunity and resources, even so-called vulnerable
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CHAPTER IV.
PREPARATIONS FOR PURSUIT.
As the cowboys, who knew him so well, heard the grim words
uttered by the doughty ranchman, they realized that he would keep
his vow of trailing the cattle thieves until he had, indeed, run them to
their lair.
“We’re with you, Sam,” declared the foreman.
“That’s what!” chorused the other cowpunchers, while Deadshot
added: “There can’t no bunch of cowlifters say they fooled Deadshot
Pete—and got away with it!”
“But as I was a going to say,” continued Sandy, “it strikes me we
ought to round up the cattle and get ’em back before we start out.”
“And let those sneaks get away while we’re doing it?” snapped the
owner of the Double Cross. “I’d rather get them than all the cattle on
my ranch!”
“That’s all right, Sam. I know how you feel; that is, I know how I’d feel
in your place. But they can’t get away. We’ll trail ’em from Old Mex to
Canada—if we have to. A few hours’ start won’t do ’em any good,
consequently. So I say, what’s the use of letting the cattle run wild?”
Already the animals which still remained inside the raided corral
were beginning to quiet down, the cause of their disturbance having
been removed, and the reasoning of the foreman, therefore, was
sound.
“Reckon Sandy’s right,” opined Pinky. “The critturs won’t run very far
on such a night, and unless there are enough of the devils to follow
each bunch, daylight won’t find ’em more’n a mile or so from home.”
Several minutes the ranchman sat pondering, vouchsafing no reply,
while his men anxiously awaited any word or movement that would
indicate their boss’s intentions.
“That’s horse sense, I suppose,” he exclaimed, at last. “But I hate to
let the skulks think I care more for my cattle than for getting the first
opportunity to pump them full of lead.”
“But ain’t it more businesslike to get both the cattle and them?”
inquired Sandy.
“It ain’t only the business end of it—it’s the effect it will have on any
other thieves who might take a flier at cutting out your critturs, that
you’ve got to think of, Sam,” declared Deadshot.
“If you hit the trail without rounding up the cattle, so many cowlifters
would strike for the Double Cross there wouldn’t be room for ’em on
the home ranch. They’d argue as how you couldn’t chase ’em all and
so some of ’em would be able to drive off a bunch of critturs—and for
the value of the cattle they’d be willing to risk pursuit. On the other
hand, if you first round up the cattle and then the cowlifters, getting
both of them, there won’t a dirty greaser nor a renegade buck dare to
lift a finger against the Double Cross outfit.”
Though this argument was crude and expressed in a roundabout
way, it’s meaning was perfectly clear.
“There’s no getting away from the fact that your reasoning is sound,
Deadshot,” responded Bowser. “So we’ll wait till daylight and then
round up the cattle.” Though his reluctance to abandon immediate
pursuit was evidenced by his next words, as he added: “But I do hate
to let a man take a shot at me—let alone two—without sending at
least one shell in return.”
“If that’s all what’s worrying you, cheer up,” rejoined Pinky. “You
seem to be forgetting it was you who started the game by taking a
pot at the spook, when it was floating around.”
“That’s so. I didn’t think of that,” returned the owner of the Double
Cross. And from the tone of his voice, his men understood that the
memory had appreciably tempered his regret at being obliged to
await the coming of day before picking up the trail.
Quieter and quieter were the cattle in the raided corral becoming, a
sign the cowpunchers interpreted to mean that the thieves had taken
their departure after the last shot. Consequently when the end of an
hour brought no fresh outbreak, the ranchman ordered his men to
return to the horse corral and gather together the things they would
require when they took up the pursuit.
To their amazement, when they rode into the yard, there was not a
light to be seen in either the home or bunkhouse.
“You don’t suppose they’ve run off with the missus, too?” suggested
Pinky, in alarm.
But their anxiety as to the safety of Mrs. Bowser was allayed even as
the cowboy spoke.
“Who goes there?” demanded a voice, meant to be stern, but in
which there was an unmistakable tremor, from the direction of the
home front door.
“It’s all right, Sarah. It’s the boys and I,” hastily replied her husband.
“Glory be! I’ve been scared almost out of my wits,” exclaimed the
woman.
“Scared?” repeated the men, in surprise.
“Yes. Just after Deadshot had left, I heard some one ride into the
yard. Thinking it was either him or one of you, I rushed to the door.
‘Get inside if you don’t want a bullet in your head!’ shouted a voice.”
“The fiend!” ejaculated the ranchman. “Did he shoot at you?” he
asked, anxiously.
“No. I didn’t give him the chance. When I found it wasn’t any of you, I
ducked down, slamming the door and then I put the lights out.”
“But what became of the lights in the bunkhouse?” inquired Sandy.
“I put them out, too,” returned Mrs. Bowser. “You see, after I got over
the first surprise and scare, my nerve came back. I grabbed one of
Sam’s guns, crept across the yard, extinguished the lamps and then
took up my stand in the doorway, determined to take a shot at any
one else who came along.”
“Thank goodness, you had the foresight to speak before shooting,”
exclaimed her husband. “It was the last thing I ever thought of your
being on guard.”
“Oh, I may be a ‘’fraid cat,’ but I’m no fool,” asserted the woman.
“That’s what you’re not, Sarah.”
“And there ain’t many other women with the nerve to stand watch in
the dark after they’ve been threatened,” chimed in Sandy, in evident
admiration of the bravery displayed by the wife of the ranch owner.
During the conversation, the men had dismounted and Pinky had
relighted the lamps in the bunkhouse, which they all entered, leaving
their ponies standing, ready saddled in case of emergency, by the
door.
In the light of the lamps, Mrs. Bowser was able to notice for the first
time that her husband was hatless, while the others all had their
sombreros on.
“How’d you lose your hat, Sam?” she queried.
“Shot off,” replied the ranch owner, laconically. And then, in response
to her eager inquiries, he told her all that had transpired in the cattle
corral.
“Land sakes! How many of them do you suppose there were?” she
asked, as the narration of the exciting incidents of the stampede, the
disappearance of the mysterious spectre and the shooting was
concluded.
“There must have been four or five, at least, judging from the number
of openings there were in the fence,” answered Pinky, eager to take
part in the conversation.
But his remark was ignored in the attention given to Deadshot.
“How many did you see riding through the yard, Mrs. Bowser?” he
asked.
“Only one.”
“Which means the gang has split up,” declared Sandy.
“Oh, you can’t tell anything by that,” asserted the ranchman. “The
fellow may have been cutting through to join the rest of his bunch.
Just stow your saddlebags with grub, shells and cartridges, then look
to your guns. We must be off with the first break of day.”
In obedience, the cowpunchers set about making their preparations
for the pursuit, while the ranchman and his wife crossed the yard to
their home.
With the first flush of light in the East, the Double Cross outfit rode
forth to gather the strayed cattle, the majority of which they found, as
Pinky had prophesied, within a few miles of the home-ranch.
Driving them back to the corral as quickly as possible, the men took
stock and found they had recovered all but about fifty.
“That’s probably all the ‘lifters’ thought they could handle and make
their getaway,” exclaimed Sandy.
“More likely it means there weren’t so many of the raiders as we
think,” rejoined his boss. “Come on, now. We’ll pick up the trail of this
bunch of fifty and see where that brings us.”
And with the promise to his wife that he would have a couple of the
cowboys from Henry Hawks’ ranch come over to protect her and the
cattle, the owner of the Double Cross dashed away to pick up the
trail of the Midnight Raider, followed by his cowpunchers.
CHAPTER V.
ON THE TRAIL.
Having learned, when they rounded up the stampeded cattle, that
the openings in the corral fence were on the Southern side, Bowser
and his men rode in that direction, spreading out into a wide
semicircle in order that they might cover as much territory as
possible, thereby locating the more quickly the trail followed by the
fifty head which had not been found.
Back and forth they dashed, peering through the lessening darkness
for some sight of the missing animals and straining their ears for a
distant bellow or sound that would give an idea to their whereabouts.
And as the light grew stronger and stronger, they were finally able to
scan the grass for the wide course where the cattle had trampled it in
their flight.
Several times, one or another of the searchers thought they had
found the trail, only to learn, after following it for a few minutes, that it
had been made by one of the bunches of steers they had driven
back.
Such was the position of the men that Deadshot was on the extreme
right, or Western, end of the line, while Pinky, Sandy and the owner
of the raided ranch stretched away toward the East, in the order
named.
As an hour of daylight went by without the discovery of the track, the
cowmen began to realize that the pursuit of the cattlelifters would be
no easy task, judging from the manner in which they had managed
to conceal the trail of fifty odd steers.
The realization, however, only made them the more determined to
pick up their track, and they settled down to the work grimly.
At first they had ridden to and fro, rising now and again in their
stirrups to survey the plains about them.
Finding this method of no avail, the ranchman rode over to Sandy
and ordered him to begin and systematically ride back and forth,
advancing about three hundred yards at each turn, telling him to
pass the word to Pinky, who would, in turn, inform the cowboy on the
extreme West.
“If we can’t pick up the trail within five miles, we’ll try the same tactics
to the West and then to the North and East. A man can’t put fifty
steers in his pocket and carry ’em off. The trail’s round here
somewhere—and it’s up to us to get busy and find it!” snapped
Bowser, as he whirled his pony and started back.
Before the new order could be communicated by Sandy to
Deadshot, however, the latter suddenly rose in his stirrups and
waved his arms wildly. But, failing to attract the attention of his
companions, he whipped out his six-shooters and fired three times.
The barking of the guns produced the desired effect.
Wheeling their ponies, the others beheld their comrade waving his
hands to them in signal to ride to him.
“Have you found ’em?”
“Can you see ’em?”
“Did you shoot at any one?”
These questions were shouted at the cowboy who had resorted to
such startling methods to attract the attention of his fellows.
“Do you think I’d be sitting here, waiting for you all to come up if I’d
sighted the cattle or fired at any one?” demanded the cowpuncher,
with fine scorn.
“Then what have you brought us over here for?” demanded the
owner of the Double Cross, his anger rising as he began to suspect
some trick on the part of his cowman.
“Now, don’t get het up, Sam,” chuckled Deadshot, with a calmness
that exasperated his bunkmates. “I ain’t seen the cattle, as I said, but
I’ve found their trail.”
“Where, man?” asked Pinky.
Ere the cowpuncher, who was enjoying to the full the whetting of the
other’s curiosity, could reply, however, the men rode up to him.
There, stretching away as far as their eyes could see, was a lane,
some twenty feet wide, where the fleeing cattle had trampled the
grass down as cleanly as though the path through the waving
mesquite had been cut.
“Say, they certainly was going some,” exclaimed Sandy, surveying
the trail intently. “There must have been at least four or five lifters at
their heels to make them steers hit it up like that.”
“Well, don’t sit there on your pony, arguing,” cut in the ranchman.
“Get down and search the ground for horse-hoof tracks. Deadshot,
you’ve always been bragging how all-fired clever you were at picking
out trails, now show us if you can produce.”
This calling upon their comrade to “make good” in the matter which
formed his favorite topic for bragging, brought smiles to the faces of
the other cowboys, and they sat back in their saddles preparatory to
awaiting the result of Deadshot’s scouting.
But their delight in the situation was rudely banished.
“Don’t sit there like a bunch of tenderfeet waiting for a guide to drum
up some game,” snapped Bowser. “Get down and see if you can’t
beat Deadshot to it. You want to remember there’s such critturs as
the Injuns call ‘heap talk’ men.”
The owner of the raided ranch was not the one, however, to leave all
the work to his men, and even as he spoke, he slipped from his
saddle and was soon crawling about on his hands and knees,
peering at the trampled grass, now and then pushing it aside as he
scanned the ground intently.
Spurred to action by the stinging words of their boss, the three
cowpunchers were doing the same thing, and for several minutes the
only sound audible was the panting of the ponies as they strove to
recover their wind after their hard run.
“Must have been a shoeless broncho,” grumbled Pinky, as no
imprints of a horse’s hoof rewarded his search.
“What did you expect, cavalry horses?” grunted Deadshot,
contemptuously. “You mark my word, before we round up this gang
of cowlifters, we’ll know we’ve been on the trail!”
“For once, you’re talking sense,” grinned Sandy.
And chafing one another good-naturedly, the cowboys continued
their careful examination.
The task, however, of discovering any tracks of ponies in the
trampled and cloven-hoof cut ground proved too great for the powers
of the plainsmen and at last they abandoned the attempt.
“It’s no use wasting any more time,” declared the ranchman
straightening up. “After all, it doesn’t make any difference how many
of the sneaks there were. Whether their band numbers two or a
dozen, we’re going to get them! We’ve found their trail, that’s the
main thing.”
Chagrined to think he had not been able to “make good” on his oft-
repeated assertions of his ability to track anything that went on legs,
Deadshot was finally obliged to mount his pinto and ride after the
others, who had mounted as soon as their boss had called the
search off, and were following the well-defined trail through the
grass.
“Where do you reckon the cowlifters are headed, Deadshot?” asked
Bowser, as the man overtook them.
Determined not to venture another opinion not founded on good
grounds, the cowpuncher stood up in his saddle and scanned the
horizon ahead and to the right and left.
“Course, there ain’t no way of saying for certain,” he began, “but,
from what I know of cowlifters’ little ways and the lay of these here
plains——”
“Oh, cut it short! We ain’t no pleasure party being toted round on a
‘rubberneck’ expedition,” growled Pinky. “If you’ve got any idea, out
with it.”
“As I was saying, from my knowledge of the tricks of cattle raiders
and these plains,” repeated Deadshot, ignoring the interruption of his
bunkmate, “I should say the lifters were headed for the Sangammon
bottoms. They ain’t more than forty mile away, and there’s swamps
in there with grass high enough to hide an elephant.”
With various comments, the others received this suggestion of the
destination of the Midnight Raider, but no one ventured an open
contradiction.
“I reckon you’ve hit the mark this time, Deadshot,” finally declared
the ranch owner. “Though I’d hoped the devils might have headed for
the old Indian catacombs, over in the Haunted Valley. It would be an
all-fired sight easier to rout them out from the tombs than from the
Sangammon swamps—and not so dangerous to us. A man’s liable
to strike a mudhole and be sucked under before his pals could find
him.”
“Perhaps Deadshot ain’t right,” suggested Pinky, to whom his boss’
words brought up unexpected dangers.
But none of the others offered any comment, and in silence, each
man absorbed in his own thoughts, the quartet, bound on their
mission of revenge, swept along over the trampled trail.
CHAPTER VI.
THE AVENGERS ARE DELAYED.
After an hour’s hard riding, the avengers came upon the body of a
steer lying in the trail.
The sight of the beast’s carcass seemed to madden the owner of the
Double Cross ranch.
“Look at that steer!” he yelled. “Never was a better beef grazed the
plains! And here it lies, dead from being driven to death! Curse the
fiends! I’ll make them suffer for raiding my cattle and then running
them to death! After them, boys, don’t dally to examine, the steer!”
“Easy, Sam, easy,” returned Sandy. “We’ll get ’em, don’t worry. But it
won’t do any harm to look at the crittur. A few minutes won’t make
any difference, and we can tell from the heat of the body about how
far the lifters are ahead of us.”
Scarce a moment after the foreman had voiced this suggestion was
it before Deadshot was on the ground.
Still smarting under the sarcasm of his boss over his failure to pick
out the horse tracks when they struck the trail, the cowboy had no
sooner gained the side of the prostrate steer than he was upon the
mesquite. And, even as Sandy spoke, with skilled hands, he was
running over the hide.
Eagerly the others awaited his verdict as to the time the animal had
been lying there.
But Deadshot spoke never a word.
“Well?” snapped his master, unable to restrain his impatience when
several minutes had passed and the cowboy had not voiced his
opinion.
“The body’s cold, Sam. But it ain’t stone cold.”
“Which means we’ve got some tall riding to do if we expect to
overhaul the ornery cusses before they lose themselves in the
swamp,” commented Pinky.
“That shows how much you know,” retorted the ranchman. “We’re a
good twenty mile from the home corral, which is about half way to
the bottoms, according to Deadshot, and the steer is cold.
Consequently, the rest of the bunch must have passed here a good
six hours ago. No man, unless he had wings, could overtake the
cowlifters before they reached Sangammon, eh, Sandy?”
“Reckon you’ve got it about right, Sam,” returned his foreman. “The
raiders had all of six hours start, and judging from the condition of
this steer, here, they’re running the critturs to the limit. If that animal
ain’t thirty pound poorer than when he left the corral, I don’t know
anything about cattle.”
“Then you think we haven’t gained on them?” demanded Bowser,
anxiously.
“None to speak of.”
“And, what’s more, we won’t be able to cut down enough of their
lead to make it worth while to kill our ponies trying to,” interposed
Deadshot. “Sandy’s telling it straight when he says the devils are
running the steers for all they can. If we don’t come across more
than half of them before we get to the swamps, I’ll miss my guess.”
A moment the ranchman pondered over these opinions.
“That being the case, then, there’s no use of keeping to the trail,” he
finally exclaimed.
“Why not?” demanded the others, surprised at the words as they
remembered their boss’s vow.
“Because we’ve got to go over to Henry Hawks’ and get him to send
some of his men to guard Sarah and what’s left of my cattle in the
corral.”
“And if you’ll take my advice, you’ll get old Hen to join us with a
couple or so of his boys,” asserted Deadshot. “Rounding up these
lifters ain’t going to be any child’s play—especially when they’re
hiding in the swamps!”
“Righto,” rejoined Bowser. “The more of us, the better. Come on,
every jump we take along this trail now is leading us farther from the
Star and Moon. By striking for it now, we ought to reach Hen’s in
time for dinner.”
Accordingly, the avengers abandoned for the time being the trail
made by the cattle thieves, and, turning their ponies straight for the
South, set out to obtain protection for the lone woman left on the
Double Cross home ranch and reinforcements to their own numbers,
that they might the more quickly run the miscreants to cover.
The tax upon their ponies incurred by galloping through the tall grass
and sagebrush was greater than in following the cattle track and, in
consequence, their speed was less. Notwithstanding that handicap,
however, they made fairly good time, and the sun was directly
overhead when they cantered into the yard of the Star and Moon
home ranch.
At the sound of the rapid hoofbeats, Mrs. Hawks came to the door.
“Well, Sam Bowser, if I’m not glad to see you,” she exclaimed,
cordially, as soon as she made out the identity of the riders. “Put
your ponies in the corral and come right in. You’re just in time for
dinner. I guess I’ve got enough, if I haven’t, I can mighty soon get it.
I’m——”
Believing that the woman’s volubility would soon wear itself out,
Bowser had waited for her to pause of her own accord. But when,
after extending her hearty invitation for the riders to come in and eat,
she started on a fresh tack, the ranchman decided to interrupt.
“Isn’t Hen home?” he asked, the failure of the man to appear
suggesting the far from welcome idea.
“No. He and the boys have been gone three days driving in the cattle
for shipping. I expect him back this afternoon, though. He said it
wouldn’t be more than three days at the longest.” Then, noting the
look of disappointment that her words brought to her neighbor’s face,
she asked hastily: “There isn’t anything wrong, is there? Nothing’s
happened to Sarah?”
“Sarah’s all right; at least, she was when we left at daybreak. But
some ornery cowlifters got into my home corral last night and made
off with fifty head.” And briefly he told Mrs. Hawks the uncanny
circumstances of the raid.
With eyes growing bigger at each word, the good woman listened to
the account of the mysterious spectre.
“Sakes alive! and you’ve left Sarah alone with that thing liable to
drop in on her any minute?” she exclaimed, in consternation. “If I
were she, I wouldn’t stay there by myself a minute. No, sir, not a
single minute. It isn’t fair of you to make her, Sam. I’d just like to see
Henry Hawks leave me alone under such conditions.”
This vigorous scolding for failure to afford protection to his wife
shamed the owner of the Double Cross, and hot flushes glowed
beneath his weather-tanned face as he strove to excuse himself.
“That’s just what I came over here for,” he stammered. “I wanted Hen
to let me have a couple of his boys so’s I could use mine to trail the
raiders.”
“It makes no difference what you intended to do,” declared Mrs.
Hawks. “You men are all alike. You seem to think that we women can
take care of ourselves, no matter what happens. And, as though it
weren’t enough to make us live way out in the plains, you go and
leave us whenever you feel like it. If I were Sarah, I’d let you know
what I thought of such treatment, especially with a spook hanging
about.”
“Well, thank goodness, you’re not Sarah,” muttered Bowser under
his breath, though aloud he said: “To tell the truth, Amy, I was so
riled up over being tricked the way I was that the only thing I thought
of was getting on the lifters’ trail. But, after what you’ve said, I see it
wasn’t just right toward Sarah.
“Pinky, cut out one of Hen’s ponies from the corral and ride back to
the ranch just as fast as you can travel. Remember, I shall ask how
long it took you when I get home,” he added, noting the look of
disappointment and anger that spread over his cowboy’s face at the
instructions.
But Pinky knew that orders were orders, especially when delivered
by the owner of the Double Cross ranch, and, without any ado,
wheeled his pony, rode over to the corral, picked out one of the Star
and Moon bronchos and without as much as a glance toward his
grinning bunkmates, dashed from the yard.
Yet, to himself, the cowboy was telling in no uncertain words or polite
language what he thought of “meddling old women.” And, so many
were his ideas upon the subject, that he was still intent upon
expressing his opinion when he reined into the yard of the Double
Cross, some three hours later.
CHAPTER VII.
THE MYSTERIOUS SPECTRE REAPPEARS.
Even the delicious dinner Mrs. Hawks set before her neighbor did
not reconcile him to the unexpected delay caused in his plans by the
absence of the owner of the Star and Moon. Moreover, he realized
that there was reason for the sharp reprimand he had received on
account of his lack of thought for the safety of his wife—and this
realization did not tend to mollify his ill-humor.
Noting this and fearing that she had, perhaps, said too much, Mrs.
Hawks sought to make amends.
“You mustn’t take what I said about leaving Sarah too hard, Sam,”
she exclaimed, contritely. “But, being left alone on the ranch is my
sore point, and I’m so accustomed to taking Hen to task for it, that I
don’t always stop to think what I’m saying. Of course, I know you
were all cut up about your cattle—which is no more than natural—
and I reckon Sarah has been alone so often she won’t mind,
especially as it’s the daytime. If it was night, now, it would be
different.”
“It certainly would be,” returned Bowser, with emphasis. “I had no
idea of leaving Sarah alone. I told you that. It’s Hen’s being away
that upset my calculations. What time did you say you expected him
back?”
“During the afternoon. That is, to-day is the third day he’s been gone
and he said it wouldn’t take longer than three days to round up the
cattle, they’re on the near range, you know, and drive them in.” And
then, woman like, she began to borrow trouble, adding: “You don’t
suppose that spook could have made any trouble for him, do you?”
“It certainly could have if it tried the same tricks on Hen’s herd it did
on mine,” responded the owner of the Double Cross. “But, don’t start
in imagining things, Amy. A man gets trouble enough on a ranch
without worrying and fretting about what may or might happen.”
“That’s just what Hen says,” rejoined Mrs. Hawks. “It’s easy enough
for you men folks to live up to that. You have so many things to keep
you busy, you don’t have the time to think. But with us women, it’s
different. Having nobody but you to take up our minds, we just can’t
help being afraid something may happen to you. I know it’s that way
with me about Hen, and I guess it is with Sarah about you.”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” assented her neighbor. “But just remember,
worry doesn’t do anybody any good—and generally makes you
nervous and cross.” And with this parting shot, the owner of the
Double Cross, having finished his dinner, arose and went out doors,
followed by his cowboys.
“Man, dear! but ain’t she the old spitfire!” chuckled Deadshot, as they
gained the yard, taking care, however, to make sure that the woman
was not within earshot when he spoke. “I never did have any use for
Hen Hawks; but after seeing—and listening to—his running mate, I
certainly am sorry for him.”
“Well, he probably wouldn’t thank you for telling him so,” smiled
Bowser, his ill-humor disappearing under the combined effect of the
good dinner, his pipe and the cowboy’s comment upon the garrulity
of Mrs. Hawks.
Further pursuit of the topic was prevented, however, by Sandy.
“Don’t it beat all how everything seems to go against us in trailing
them cattlelifters?” he asked. “First, we couldn’t pick up their track.
Then we couldn’t overhaul ’em, and now we’ve got to lose more time
waiting for reinforcements before starting out again. It sure does look
as though we were in for trouble all along the line.”
“So you’re beginning to wake up, are you?” chuckled Deadshot.
“Didn’t I say last night, when we came near going loco over that
ghostie, that whenever one of ’em appeared, it meant trouble? And
didn’t I tell you, after we found it was a raid, that we’d have no easy
time running ’em down, as Sam said he was agoing to do?”
The scornful tone in which the cowboy reminded his bunkmate of his
prophecies aroused Sandy’s ire.
“Sure you did. But you say so many things that ain’t no account, a
feller sort of has to see for himself before he can agree with you.”
“That’s a hot one, Deadshot,” grinned his boss. “It’s a good thing for
you Pinky isn’t here, or between Sandy and him, they’d have your
goat before sundown.”
In a silence that was portentous in its intensity, the cowboy took out
his corn husk cigarette papers and makings, deftly rolled one, lighted
it, and, taking a long draw, blew out the smoke deliberately, while his
companions wondered along what lines his retort would be.
“Did you ever notice, Sam?” he finally drawled, “that there’s some
folks has to be hit with a thing before they can see it? That’s the
case with Sandy, here, though, as a member of the Double Cross
outfit, I hate to be obliged to admit it. Instead of realizing when a
feller is clever enough to pull off that ghostie stunt to cover a raid
there’d be trouble in getting close enough to ’em to pump ’em full of
lead, he don’t tumble to it till about eighteen hours afterwards.”
Fortunately, the foreman of the Double Cross had a highly developed
sense of humor, and he laughed at the pat rejoinder as heartily as
either Bowser or the man who uttered it—with the result that what
might have turned into a serious quarrel between the two
cowpunchers and endangered the harmony of the avengers, and the
united action necessary to catch the raiders was avoided.
When Mrs. Hawks had finished her housework, she appeared on the
veranda with a basket of sewing and called to the men to join her.
But, upon the pretext that they were obliged to keep close watch of
one of their ponies in the fear it had strained a tendon, they
managed to avoid the tiresome company of the well-intentioned but
garrulous woman.
Now perched on the top rail of the corral, now stretched upon the
ground, the three men who were so eager to be on their way in
pursuit of the raiders whiled away the time, ever and again searching
the horizon to the East for a glimpse of the Star and Moon outfit, with
what patience they could muster.
But as the afternoon wore away without either sight or sound of
them, Bowser began to grow restless.
“If those devils find we haven’t reached the swamps by sundown,
they are just as likely as not to drive my cattle to some other place—
and then we surely will have a merry time locating them. It’ll be hard
enough if we know they are in the bottoms. But when we can’t be
certain even of that, we’ll have the very old Nick of a time,” he
complained.
“What do you want to do, start out and leave word for Hen and his
men to follow?” asked Sandy. “It does seem too bad to give the
ornery cusses a chance to get away on us.”
“That’s the idea I was figuring on,” returned the ranchman. “What do
you say, Deadshot?”
“Just what you told Mrs. Hawks—don’t borrow trouble,” rejoined the
cowboy, a twinkle in his eye.
“Meaning?”
“That it’s a fool idea to worry about the lifters hiking out right away
when once they’ve hit the safety of the swamps. Let me tell you, they
will be only too thankful to find we’re not on their trail so they can get
a good night’s rest. You two know, as well as I do, it ain’t any cinch
job shoving fifty head of cattle along as fast as they can leg it in the
dark.”
“There’s good sense in that reasoning,” declared the owner of the
stolen steers, after several moments’ reflection.
“And the beauty of it is, it’s the facts,” exclaimed Deadshot. “I never
knew a cowlifter who wasn’t lazy and, once in the bottoms, they’ll
feel so safe, I’m willing to bet they won’t think of breaking cover for a
week, at least, unless we jump ’em. So if Hen don’t show up for
forty-eight hours more, there won’t be any great harm done.”
The avengers were not obliged to wait so long for the appearance of
the men they hoped to get to take up the trail with them, however.
Just as twilight tinted the waving grasses with glorious reds and
purples, the halloo of the cowboys rang out, and in due course the
owner of the Star and Moon ranch rode into the yard.
At the sight of his neighbor, he was glad, greeting him with hearty
cordiality and chiding him for the length of time it had been since he
had paid him a visit. But when he learned the purpose of Bowser’s
presence, he became grave.
“You’re sure right, I’ll help you trail the skulks, Sam!” he declared.
“Just as soon as the boys have had their chuck, we’ll start. We drove
down by easy stages, that’s what took us so long, so they aren’t
tired.”
While the two ranchmen had been exchanging greetings and talking,
the rest of the outfit had come up with the cattle, and, as he
observed this, Hawks called out:
“Hey, Dude, tell Ki Yi to come right up to the house.”
But, before he entered the presence of his boss, the man whose
name had been bestowed upon him by his bunkmates because of
the yell he always emitted when excited, as well as the other
members of the Star and Moon outfit, had been made aware of the
reason for the presence of the men from the Double Cross.
“I suppose Deadshot has told you about the raid?” smiled Hawks, as
his cowboy came up to the veranda.
“Sure.”
“What do you make of it? Ever hear of that ghost stunt being pulled
off before?”
“That’s a new one on me, for certain, Hen. It strikes me, they’re a
mighty smart lot of lifters, and it’s dollars to a coyote flea the whole
bunch are in the swamps this very minute.”
“Think they’ll shift to another hiding place?” asked Bowser.
“Not till they’ve got some of the beef back on the steers they run off
of ’em—unless we jump ’em,” declared the cowpuncher.

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Social Work in a Glocalised World

Social Work and Research in Advanced Welfare States

Vulnerability and Marginality in Human Services

Mark Henrickson and Christa Fouché

List of figures and tablevi

1 Why this book? 1

2 Vulnerability and marginality 14

3 Intimacy and sexuality 32

4 Critiquing power and privilege 54

5 Delivery of care: Setting out the challenges 66

6 Restoring the human to human services 79

7 Practice research with vulnerable and marginalised

8 Research ethics 105

9 Re-imagining vulnerability and marginality:

The authors are mindful of the privilege of the many conversations on

The purpose of this book is to explore vulnerability and marginality as

Engaging the terms

ecological, and biophysical systems, that prevent them from access to

sure of a great deal of personal information to a largely anonymous public

The focus and structure of this book

This book critiques and challenges the notion of objectively classifying

warehouses of palliation and management of risk, rather than places that

consider alternatives to the challenge of risk-focussed care identified in

ways we as social workers and other human service providers, educators,

Key questions for Chapter 1

We invite you to reflect on your position on some of the key issues

defined vulnerability and marginality in your practice or work.

• Who is a vulnerable person?

In the first chapter, we proposed that vulnerable and marginalised per-

environmental, health, and ethical literature. The contemporary literature

found vulnerabilities are well protected and concealed. An artifice of vul-

resources. These economies and policy environments – our now-familiar

placed on my vulnerability because I will in some way be deemed culpa-

Vulnerability and resilience

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List of figures and tablevi

1 Why this book? 1

2 Vulnerability and marginality 14

3 Intimacy and sexuality 32

4 Critiquing power and privilege 54

5 Delivery of care: Setting out the challenges 66

6 Restoring the human to human services 79

8 Research ethics 105