Introduction

“Human vulnerability arises from our embodiment which carries with it the immanent or ever-present possibility of harm, injury or misfortune” (Fineman, 2010, p. 267). Vulnerability is a human condition as it is universal and relational, referring to relationships between individuals and between individuals and society (Fineman, 2010; Herring, 2016). Vulnerable thus means “able to be damaged” (Virokannas et al., 2018) and it can be seated not only inside the individual (related with low self-efficacy), personified (attached to a particular person or group) but also relational; that is, determined and cumulated in relationships between individuals in diverse life situations and environments. In sum, all people can be vulnerable in some situations (Nussbaum, 2004)—while some people and groups accumulate more vulnerabilities than others do. Children are by nature vulnerable, determined by their position among generations in society as minors with a dependent status. They stay out of the decision-making over and distribution of social wealth as adults cover their needs (e.g., Qvortrup, 1994; Wintersberger, 1994; Finkelhor, 2008). Moreover, vulnerability grows out of subjectivities (perceptions, cognitions, opinions about lived experiences) and converge in inter-subjectivity as “…the variety of relations between perspectives that can belong to individuals, groups, or traditions and discourses, and they can manifest as both implicit (or taken for granted) and explicit (or reflected upon)” (Gillespie & Cornish, 2010, p. 19). Inter-subjectivity is a reservoir of emerging, mutually generated vulnerability, especially when the child’s agency is disregarded, their rights are not trusted or are misinterpreted or abused. This book explores how vulnerability in childhood develops within subjects in relationships with other people (other children, parents, specialists, etc), how it is created through welfare, health care, education, and justice systems, and empowered by multiple crises, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine.