It is commonly acknowledged that the world’s rural poor are vulnerable to loss and suffering from global climatic change, but there remains disagreement about how vulnerability should be defined and measured. In this paper, we advance the “profile approach” to vulnerability analysis, illustrated through a cluster analysis of livelihoods and assets of 521 households in India. Our approach focuses on household differentiation as a means to tease apart the causes and conditions that shape variegated exposures to risk. By exploring how vulnerability unfolds through specific constellations of factors on the ground, we believe that the profile approach will serve as a useful tool to build theory on the causes and conditions that shape household vulnerability in different contexts and to aid in the formulation of better-targeted interventions.
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