The geographies that wound

Abstract As a contribution to debates about vulnerability, this essay is a meditation on the theme of ‘wounds’ and ‘wounding’. The focus is primarily conceptual, reflecting on how vulnerability studies might be recast through the lenses of wounds and wounding, thereby retrieving a critical sense of attributing blame for the ‘making’ of certain peoples and places more vulnerable than others to hazards of all kinds. Emphasis is placed on the interconnected geographies (and histories) through which vectors of blame might be traced, but also on questions arising about how to ‘treat’ the wounds of the vulnerable, touching on more literary–critical and anthropological arguments about how the pain of the wounded should be represented and memorialised. The essay admittedly retreads ground already covered by other critical scholars, but hopefully holds value as part of a broader thrust of progressive ‘ontology‐building’ exercises. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.