Search

A shift in how to measure well-being using more appropriate and coherent indicators has been long called for. Nonetheless, monetary indicators, such as income and GDP, or utilitarian frameworks, remain the most common approaches used. The capability approach (CA) has been advocated as an alternative framework to measure well-being. This paper aims to capture the state-of-the-art of how the CA has been applied to assess or characterise the well-being impacts of project-based development interventions in Global South countries. The ultimate goal is to discuss whether the CA provides more varied and complex indicators of well-being and therefore more comprehensive impact assessments. The results highlight that qualitative and participatory approaches are frequently applied methods to assess individual capabilities, most often related to educational, economic, social and empowerment dimensions. Capabilities linked to environmental and recreational activities, as well as collective capabilities, were significantly overlooked. Quantitative approaches to impact evaluation were less frequently used. This paper provides a first systematic review on the use of the CA to assess well-being impacts. Future applications of the CA could focus on better integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches for robust impact assessments and targeting understudied capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living in social contexts characterised by poverty and inequality, street young people have limited access to healthcare, water sanitation and hygiene services; exacerbating effects of ill health, infections, lack of nutrition and substance abuse that undermine their wellbeing. In Harare, Zimbabwe, they are also excluded from Social Protection Programmes (SPPs) which potentially assist other impoverished Zimbabweans, two-thirds of whom live below the poverty line (WFP 2019. Zimbabwe Annual Country Report 2019. World Food Programme). In this paper, we propose a reassessment of SPPs, in particular the Assisted Medical Treatment Order (AMTO), identifying barriers to access, and benefits for extending access to street young people. Drawing on secondary analysis of data from Growing up on the Streets, this paper re-conceptualises Ingrid Robeyns' (2005. "The Capability Approach: A Theoretical Survey." Journal of Human Development 6 (1): 93–117. ) model of capabilities and applies it to the reversal of street youth exclusion and the application of government-targeted initiatives which have failed to reach those in the most vulnerable situations. In so doing, we propose an adapted model which recognises how the capabilities of street young people are enhanced when they are integrated into SPPs. This adapted model can be replicated and applied to relevant interventions for other groups of marginalised people in across contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this theoretical paper, we respond to the Triple Day Thesis (TDT) by positioning it within the context of the neoclassical labour supply literature and existing public policy. The TDT applies a theoretical lens to the practical experiences of mothers as they distribute time between self-reproductive, reproductive, and waged work. Self-reproductive work refers to self-care, self-investment, and self-realizable activities, including time for good sleep, schooling, and intellectual and social engagements that promote mothers' human development and well-being. The TDT identifies the Triple Day Problem (TDP) as the lack of freedom or inability of mothers to engage in self-reproductive work as they balance the increasing demands of reproductive work with waged work and proposes Motherhood Compensation as a social policy solution. In this paper, we demonstrate that the existence of the TDP can be used to explain persistent gender differences in labour force participation. We envision the TDT as a novel theoretical approach to promoting mothers' labour force participation and social mobility through self-reproductive work. We suggest that Motherhood Compensation can be created from a mix of already existing family programs, including paid leave, parental allowance, and cash transfer programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The February 2022 UNDP Special Report (SR) on Human Security, "New threats to human security in the Anthropocene: Demanding greater solidarity" marked a welcome return by the UN body to the field in which, in 1994, it had provided the seminal text. The SR stimulated a great deal of academic and policy debate, featuring prominently in the HDCA Human Security Thematic Group's sessions at the 2022 HDCA Antwerp conference. Conversations between the UNDP HDRO and HDCA led to the 2023 Human Security Policy Forum published in the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. The papers produced in this forum have emphasised a broadening of the human security discourse and policy prescription to consider the SR's additional focus on the Anthropocene, agency, and solidarity. Several of the papers have also drawn attention to the interconnectivity of threats and spillover between them. While there is consensus among the papers on these issues, they are limited in the extent to which they address how such foci also lead to contestation, how they are situated in the wider policy discourse, and how they might best be operationalised. This paper revisits these discussions, adding additional insight on these points of reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last five decades have witnessed sociologists formulating various scales to measure and assess the degree of alienation of workers. Critical Marxists, however, argue that de-ideologisation and valueneutrality cannot be seen as desirable properties of a reconceptualization of the Marxian notion of alienation. Most Marxist scholars are not in favour of a comparative-quantitative analysis of Marx's theory of alienation. Nevertheless, Sen situates Marx's theory in the category of those which carry out "realization-focused comparison" (as opposed to "transcendental institutionalism"), by comparing societies that actually exist or may evolve. This paper articulates the need for an operationalization of the concept of alienation in empirical terms and calls for a meaningful dialogue between the capability approach to meaningful work and the emerging and significant body of literature on alienation and capabilities. It argues that alienation, translated to the capability vocabulary as "impairments in responsible agency to attain the capabilities one has reason to value" may also be mapped onto failed social relationships. Even when we do not limit the concept of alienation to the system-anti-system binary, we need to understand it in the context of the failures of economic institutions existing in the contemporary world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a Polanyian capabilitarian framework to understand and justify the universal basic income. I combine Amartya Sen's capabilities approach with Karl Polanyi's substantive view of economy to mount a normative case for basic income. Using this approach, I also ground the basic income debate in a relational ontology, the idea that the self and society are mutually constituted. By doing so, I problematise hegemonic assumptions underlying much of the basic income discourse and call for ontological and epistemic diversity. The paper both provides a critique of individualist ontology and offers an affirmative modification centred on relationality and interdependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literatures on Macroeconomics and Human development and capabilities have been described as constituting "two different worlds" that never intersect despite the importance of macroeconomics for human development (Nayyar [2012]. "Macroeconomics and Human Development." Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 13 (1): 7–30.). This paper explores the barriers that keep the two worlds apart in policy making. It considers the case of national strategies for one is implementing UN Agenda 2030 (better known as the SDGs) with a commitment to equity and inclusion; the majority of which rely on social protection and neglect macroeconomic policies. This paper proposes four systemic barriers in the policy making processes: institutional silos and gaps, informational deficits, ideology, and interests. We highlight how these barriers play out in mutually reinforcing ways to construct resilient barriers: narrowly defined mandates of central banks and other economic agencies are reinforced by ideological commitments and the influence of vested interests to neglect inclusion, equity and sustainable development as policy objectives, and in policy research agendas. This in turn creates a vicious circle of information deficits with respect to policy alternatives. The paper discusses how these barriers play out differently in different policy making contexts for different stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the distribution of mortality across social groups classified by caste, gender and sector of origin in India in the mid-2010s: as such, the essay is intended to be both a methodological/measurement-oriented study and a substantive empirical assessment of an important dimension of human functioning in India. The analysis is carried out employing micro-data on the age-distributions of population and death-rates available in the National Family Health Survey of 2015–16 (NFHS-4). Mortality in the paper is measured in terms of the crude death rate, an indicator of "inefficiency" in the age-distribution of deaths, and an "age-adjusted" death rate which takes account of both the mean and the dispersion of a distribution. The last-mentioned indicator is taken to be the preferred measure of mortality. The analysis in the paper suggests that mortality outcomes across castes replicate the caste hierarchy and that there is a sharp rural-urban divide in the distribution of death. Mortality sex-ratios are found to be relatively more favourable for the lower than the higher castes. The results presented in the paper are not unexpected, but they provide quantitative confirmation of one's worst suspicions regarding the skewed distribution of mortality across social groups in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of loss and damage has generated contentious debates in international policymaking and climate negotiations. Up until now, political agreements have been possible because of the use of ambiguous language in defining loss and damage. However, with the agreement of creating a specific fund for loss and damage reached in the last COP27, the need to define loss and damage becomes more pressing. This definition will not only determine to whom the funds will flow, but also what kind of measures will be funded. This paper contributes to clarifying these two issues. First, it proposes what should count, minimally, as loss and damage by specifying a minimal account of loss and damage based on the capabilities approach. This minimal account develops and justifies an ex-post perspective on loss and damage that is coherent with the UNFCCC discourse. Moreover, it proposes to differentiate between economic damage, non-economic losses, and non-economic damage. Second, it proposes a variety of reparative measures (material and symbolic) that should be implemented in response to different forms of loss and damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses repair as valuable for thinking about and acting towards sustainable human development. Repair asks us to take account of intersections of past, present, and reimagined futures; the end is becoming and being full human beings with dignity, attentive to the lives of others and to what Achille Mbembe calls the "living world". We seek to repair that which is valuable to us, while also setting aside what cannot be fixed (for example colonialism and apartheid). The concept of repair is proposed as a lens to think about some disrepair challenges facing development: the enduring effects of history on justice, skewed global knowledge relations, and racism. The ideas are then applied to the space of education. A repair praxis framework is proposed based on four overlapping dimensions: conviviality as incompleteness; advancing epistemic freedoms; fostering transformational learning; and, spaces of dialogue and participation. The paper concludes with an example of renaming the world to repair the world and finally reminds us that we should pay attention to who we are with others, to what we repair, and to the kind of ancestors we choose to be for future generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key objectives of this research study are to construct a valid and reliable household-based Human Development Index (HDI) and to estimate human development disparities in 36 districts of Punjab (Pakistan) by analysing Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey microdata. The household-level HDI, a composite index, is constructed by applying the arithmetic mean of the household-level health, asset, and education indices. The district of Lahore, among all the 36 districts of Punjab, has the highest HDI score of 0.743, followed by districts Rawalpindi, Jhelum, and Gujrat. Four neighbouring districts from South Punjab: Rajanpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Muzzaffar Gar, and Rahim Yaar Khan, have the lowest HDI scores of 0.492, 0508, 0.531, and 0.566, respectively. This paper has used the Palma-ratio and Gini-coefficient to estimate human development disparities in Punjab. The highest human development disparities are observed in the Rajanpur district with a Gini-coefficient of 0.38 and a Palma Ratio of 1.55. Both the Gini and Palma Ratio methods produce similar district rank orderings of inequality. This research recommends that additional efforts be made to uplift the districts with the lowest human development in Southern Punjab through local government restructuring and devolution of relevant powers, including the formation of a separate province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empowerment projects and research have focused on marginalised women, but often with less attention to the intersectional and relational conditions affecting their marginalisation. Ethnic minority women in Vietnam have multiple marginalising conditions, and they are targeted by government programmes to increase their participation in labour markets, their income, and their empowerment. Yet what the empowerment process looks like and achieves for these women is an important area for further study. This paper draws on a mixed-methods longitudinal study of an economic empowerment and livelihoods project that involved Hmong and Dao households in Vietnam. The quantitative data showed differences in women's and men's empowerment as measured on the A-WEAI, and among the different ethnic groups. Given these differences, we explored how power relations in the household and in the community affected Hmong and Dao women's empowerment differently. We used a relational capabilitiarian approach to analyse the relations between men and women as well as the community structures that affected empowerment and wellbeing. The analysis shows that women's and men's sharing of information, resources and workload are critical for improving women's livelihoods and wellbeing, but these processes look different for Hmong and Dao women, and they are affected by different social structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urgency of the climate crisis is such that it needs to inform most policy-making. It represents a major threat to human development. Yet while the existence of the crisis is generally acknowledged, this has not affected macro-economic policy even though the climate crisis has major effects on the accepted objectives of macro-economic policy, including growth and economic stability. The paper explores changes in macro-economic policy needed for sustainability which should become an intrinsic and overriding objective of policy. Implications of doing so are explored, including replacing the growth objective with green/sustainable growth, altering the measurement of GDP accordingly; greatly increasing the weight given to the well-being of future generations with implications for interest and investment rates; and reforming taxes and expenditures. Ballooning of debt is justified to support a rapid transition to a carbon-free economy. Among high-income countries, the growth objective should be questioned. Low income countries need green growth to attain reasonable living standards. Large-scale resource transfers to low income countries are essential to support green expenditures for mitigation and especially adaptation. High priorities are a change in the approach of the IMF and World Bank, and innovative financial mechanisms to support the required transfers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the trends in income inequality over the last 40 years, and proposes a new explanation for their evolution – that it is hoped will be tested empirically by many studies in the years ahead – to see whether the observed increases in inequality of the last four decades have been caused by an aggravation of its traditional causes (such as land an human capital concentration), or by a widespread increase in instability in five key areas affecting inequality, the Human Development Index and human capabilities. The five areas where a sharp increase in instability has been observed concern: (a) the financial sector; (b) industry 4.0, especially the development of robotics and artificial intelligence; (c) diseases such as ebola, aids and covid; (d) number of conflicts and (e) a growing environmental crisis. A key unanswered question in the above proposed overall explanation is whether these five crises are interconnected and whether there is a primum movens that explains this series of problematic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on transition policies targeted at supporting workers now employed in the fossil fuel industries and ancillary sectors within high-income economies. As a general normative principle, I argue that the overarching aim of such policies should be to protect workers against major losses in their living standards resulting through the fossil fuel industry phase-out. The impacted workers should be provided with guarantees to accomplish this, in the areas of jobs, compensation and pensions. Just transition policies should also include job search, retraining and relocation programs, but these forms of support should be recognized as supplementary. The overall set of just transition policies is fully aligned with the Energy Justice and Capabilities Approach as well as the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Within this framework, the paper first reviews experiences with transitional policies in Germany, the UK, the EU and, more briefly, Japan and Canada. The policies either implemented or discussed in these cases do not provide the needed guarantees. The paper then presents an illustrative robust just transition program for the heavily fossil fuel-dependent U.S. state of West Virginia. This program will cost, as an annual average, about $42,000 per impacted worker, or about 0.2 percent of West Virginia's current GDP. I briefly summarize results for seven other U.S. states and for the overall U.S. economy. For the U.S. economy overall, the just transition program's costs would total to about 0.015 percent of GDP. These findings demonstrate the financial viability of robust just transition programs for high-income economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Juxtaposed against literature that views mothers' role for their daughters' education as a human capital this paper reimagines their role by foregrounding Pakistani mothers' agency in contexts with limited opportunities. This is achieved by theorising negative capability (NC) as an analytical framework drawing on available theorisations of the concept and define it as an agentive passive refusal to be intellectually paralysed by disadvantage. We demonstrate how the concept can be applied for empirical analysis. The paper takes an ethical stance that researchers should acknowledge that regardless of contextual difficulties people's agentive and intellectual faculties remain intact. Structural inequalities need to be challenged but their agentive potential also recognised. With a firm commitment that opportunities need to be made equal this paper builds on the second point to argue that even in the face of extreme disadvantage mothers' intellectual capacities to progress towards goals remain functional. We challenge the objectification of the marginalised and propose an analytical approach to understand difficulties faced as well as agency exercised by mothers facing socio-economic constraints. This work has implications for the capability approach that falls short of addressing issues of power, and policy that fails to understand the context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore how the principles of participatory action research (PAR) articulate with questions of climate justice. Drawing on three qualitative case studies in Brazil, Fiji and Kenya, the paper explores university institutional capabilities, asking how the principles of mobilising PAR to support transformative outcomes can further climate justice. The paper argues that for participatory action research to become a pathway to build universities' capabilities, key considerations are needed. PAR needs to: (a) move beyond change in individual behaviour to respond to climate change and affect institutional norms, procedures and practices; (b) recognise and partner with marginalised groups whose voice and experiences are at the periphery of climate debate, enabling reciprocal flows of impact and knowledge between universities and wider societies; and (c) foster "relationships of equivalence" with actors within as well as outside university to influence university governance and wider climate-related policy-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable management of water and sanitation is inextricably linked with women's health and well-being. This paper investigates slippage in sanitation, experienced by women beneficiaries of the Swacch Bharat Mission Rural programme through Amartya Sen's conception of justice. A total of 135 individuals were interviewed from 49 households in Kanjadwa and Madhnagar Manoharpur Gram Panchayats, Shravasti, India, out of which 90 were women. As per findings, 30% of women practice open defaecation despite possessing toilets, resulting in slippage. The Sanitation Well-being framework is deployed to study slippage and its linkage with women's agency. Personal, cultural, and structural factors contributing to this are child marriage, denial of education and employment opportunities, slut shaming, victim blaming, domestic violence, and character assassination. These are made worse by the state adoption of misogynistic IEC messages that reinforce cultural stereotypes and worsen women's condition. In the quest to attain ODF status in Ikauna Block, UP, the current sanitation programme became a tool of suppression. Consequently, we understand that open defaecation among women is an outcome of the basic unfreedoms rather than a volitional choice that prevents them from experiencing sanitation well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Task Force "Towards a Multidimensional Index to Child Growth", within the International Union of Nutritional Sciences, developed a capability framework for child growth (CFCG). This framework aims to redefine child growth monitoring, expanding beyond weight and height to encompass parental capabilities. We further operationalised the CFCG in hard-to-reach haor areas of Bangladesh, resulting in the publication of a list outlining parental capabilities for child growth. This paper details the methodology and participatory process employed, offering reflections on how our research followed the criteria proposed by Robeyns for identifying capabilities. First, we built a contextualised list of capabilities for child growth based on discussions with local experts. This list underwent further adaptation for haor regions in two rounds. Initially, we used a doxastic interviewing methodology to create a draft emic list of capabilities for child growth. Subsequently, utilising an epistemic methodology, we refined the list. The doxastic interviews focused on "understanding" the interviewees; the epistemic interviews facilitated equal communication between interviewer and interviewee, promoting knowledge co-creation. This rigorous approach validates the findings with the affected communities and supports implementation of the CFCG in policy and practice. This methodology could be extended to other pertinent research areas for capability scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theorising of motherhood as a capability and a capability suppressor is critical to emancipatory discourse and practice within human development and to addressing through public policy, social injustice against women due to their role as mothers. I conceptualise motherhood as a combined reproductive capability that gives women the capability to function as mothers. Generally, by capability suppression, I mean features of a person's present capability that are likely to limit other current or potential capabilities of that person to function – suppressive functioning – while those same features simultaneously play a fertile role in promoting the capabilities or functionings of others – fertile functioning. Maternal capability suppression is therefore the limitation of a mother's capabilities to function due to the instrumental role of childrearing. A mother's lack of freedom to engage in the triple day of self-reproduction due to maternal capability suppression explains the triple day problem. To address the triple day problem, the paper draws on Martha Nussbaum's capability theory of social justice to develop and explain the specific tragic conflict of capability suppression inherent in motherhood. The paper further proposes motherhood compensation as a complement to Nussbaum's fair-bargain approach of promoting childcare and economic options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a comprehensive conceptual framework for measuring the Quality of Work (QoW) using the Capability Approach (CA). Drawing from [Robeyns,, Ingrid. 2017. Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers.] modular framework for developing Capability Theories, it proposes we conceive of work as a body of resources existing in a "space" of work. Dimensions of QoW can be identified based on how work resources enhance, or impede, the achievement of important "beings and doings" (Functionings) both inside (intrinsic importance) or outside (instrumental) this space – such as intrinsic Functionings like meaningful work; or instrumental Functionings like family- and life-fulfilment. However, it further argues that many approaches to QoW are under-specified, since they neglect the crucial ways that peoples' wider circumstances, outside this space of work, determine peoples' overall work-related wellbeing. This calls for indices of multi-dimensional QoW to also measure (a) the range of wider Functionings people could achieve outside their current work activity (the Capability Set); and (b) personal, social, and environmental factors which affect how work resources are converted into Functionings (Conversion Factors). It is only by taking these circumstances into account that indices can capture the true impact of the worst forms of work, by understanding who is forced to engage in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of affiliation by developing a contextually sensitive mid-level theory comprising specific elements, layers, and factors of affiliation. Vulnerable groups are a locus of analysis because they are particularly sensitive to various forms of social exclusion or non-affiliation. A binary study of persons with physical disability and treated alcoholics in Croatia was conducted by focus group interviewing. Through thematic analysis, six different code patterns were detected—solidarity affiliation, identity affiliation, alcoholism affiliation, disability affiliation, disability exclusion, and alcoholism exclusion—that represent key respondents' narratives on belonging. Crucial findings stress how vulnerable groups ground affiliation mostly in elements of solidarity rather than in terms of identity, how layers of affiliation (social and associational affiliation) are not so clearly differentiated but still deepen insights on affiliation, and how important factors enhancing affiliation are personal virtues which are not so prominent in theory. Therefore, the role of political institutions supporting affiliation as a meta-capability should be primarily set on solidarity affiliation, should nourish various layers of affiliation, and should be supported by citizens who care about their fellow citizens, especially those from vulnerable groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University education can provide more than discipline knowledge development. It can also develop lifelong skills such as autonomy, critical reflection, and independent thought. With its concern for the individual and development of the self as well as society, the Capability Approach offers a useful framework for evaluating individual development beyond disciplines. This paper aims to employ the Capability Approach to explore how student-led learning might lead to individual and social development. As there is a focus on courses and curricula, it employs the complementary concept of Pedagogic Rights. It presents findings from a small-scale qualitative research project, which included the perspectives of individuals who had recently completed self-designed, individually-created courses. Findings show that student-led courses align with Capability Approach values, providing a space for individual development and expansion of capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International law establishes who has rights to self-determination and outlines the rights of Indigenous people through the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Many countries who are United Nations members, such as those of our case studies, have not made changes to their laws to implement UNDRIP. This affects how Indigenous peoples can engage in capabilities for self-determination for their wellbeing. Drawing from methods that are adapted to be in alliance with Indigenous methodologies through utilising Indigenous relational theoretical frameworks, we present two case studies, one in the U.S. that used ethnographic futures research and one in Bangladesh that used participatory action research. Our paper critically discusses: (1) how the capability approach relates to Indigenous self-determination and wellbeing, (2) how colonisation affects the ability of Indigenous people to engage in capabilities for self-determination, (3) how Indigenous people define and utilise self-determination as an individual and collective capability for their wellbeing, and (4) how unfreedoms restrict Indigenous people from utilising the capabilities for self-determination. We hope that this paper will contribute to broadening the capability approach to be able to engage more fully with Indigenous peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effect of multiple natural disasters occurred in the different districts of Argentina between 1970 and 2010 on their multidimensional poverty, as measured by a Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) comprising five core dimensions of well-being: housing, basic services, standard of living, education and employment. The paper uses household microdata of the last census, and natural disasters registry from the DesInventar database. We find that natural disasters significantly increase the MPI and, while the magnitude of the impact found is moderate, effects are persistent, especially in dimensions related to infrastructure and long-term investments. We find that on average, extensive disasters are more harmful than intensive ones, although the latter do have significant impacts on sanitation infrastructure. We also find that hydrological disasters are the ones with significant impact. Finally, natural disasters have greater effect on the poorer districts of the country, corresponding to the northeast region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2022 Special Report on Human Security "calls for greater solidarity across borders and a new approach to development; one that allows people to live free from want, fear, anxiety and indignity". This paper analyses the notion of "freedom from want" and argues that human "want", understood from one cultural perspective/worldview, has created the market society with its GDP growth narrative. Such "want" could become the very reason for perceived insecurity, anxiety and indignity, if the "want" is not only to meet the basic human needs, but rather to meet desires artificially fuelled by a market society with its increasingly sophisticated tools, such as digital technology which implicitly manipulate our "wants" and rationalise them within the GDP-growth narrative. This paper proposes a policy shift from focusing on GDP growth to a new paradigm of human flourishment which allows for a "good life" for all (wo)mankind by capitalising on the concept of relational wellbeing. Relational wellbeing advocates for deep connections between humans, and between humans and nature, thereby achieving a greater global solidarity between people and a new mindset towards nature. The next generation of human security shall go beyond the aim of making people secure, and rather focus on how to enable humanity to flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rachel Nussbaum Wichert and Martha Nussbaum (Wichert and Nussbaum) begin the symposium with a bold question: Can humans be friends with wild animals? For Wichert and Nussbaum, what is most crucial to the possibility of friendship in any context is respect for the animal species' form of life. The papers in this symposium are part of an ongoing dialogue over several years about the capabilities of non-human animals that began at the 2015 HDCA conference at Georgetown University. [Extracted from the article]

Meaningful participation of people as agents in development practice has been a central concern in capabilitarian scholarship and of Amartya Sen's own work, as a valuable freedom and functioning in itself. Yet, there has been limited attention until now about knowledge generation processes and who is fully included, despite a growing body of literature arguing for pluriversality and decolonial approaches against historical and geographical inequalities at many levels. The paper proposes that capabilitarian scholarship could be enriched by considering a pluriverse of methodological perspectives, building on the work already undertaken but taking it further to create multi-epistemic conversations. This paper explores why the methodological and cosmological – onto-epistemological – unexplored areas of participatory research in capabilitarian scholarship should be embedded in our research culture and practice for more inclusive, decolonial, methodologically challenging empirical strategies (beyond methods and methodologies) that will place those situated at the margins of epistemic divisions and conflicts in the centre of knowledge production and debates. To this end and adding to the debates, the paper first considers participatory projects reported on in the journal before presenting an original framing of a capabilitarian participatory paradigm. The paper further proposes some principles that underpin its operationalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic and social policies of governments could improve or worsen the wellbeing of people, so that their impact on human development could be positive or negative. This article discusses the role, as well as the scope, of public policies for human development in the contemporary developing and industrialised worlds, buffeted by frequent global and local economic crises, including a health pandemic of unprecedented proportions, where mainstream economic policies have often been detrimental, rather than conducive, to advancing human wellbeing. The paper revisits the human development framework and anchors it in an interpretation of the capability approach that helps in delineating economic and social policy pathways to desirable outcomes. It argues that this is essential for an effective operationalisation of the approach to human development. Building on that, it explores the nature of economic and social policies that might constitute an appropriate policy-mix for advancing human development. In doing so, it recognises that, while human development problems in poor and rich countries are similar, the choices, sequencing and prioritisation of policies will inevitably be determined by the country-context and government-objectives. Given the context, it suggests that the framework of SDGs at the national level could enable a focus on human development objectives in the policy design and strategic response of countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse the development of the term "legal capabilities". More specifically, we do three things. First, we track the emergence and development of the notion of legal capabilities. The term legal capabilities was used in legal research long before the capability approach was introduced in that field. Early on, its conceptualisation mainly reflected elements of legal literacy. In more recent writings, it is claimed that the notion is based on the capability approach. Second, we critically analyse the current use of the term legal capabilities and show that there is no proper theoretical grounding of this term in the capability approach. This is problematic, because it might give rise to misunderstandings and flawed policy recommendations. Third, we suggest some first steps towards a revision of the notion of legal capabilities. Starting from the concept of "access to justice", legal capabilities have to be understood as the real opportunities someone has to get access to justice, rather than merely as formal opportunities or internal capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the Capability Approach (CA) can enrich the concept of energy justice by assessing the impact of two cases of digitalisation in the energy sector. Digitalisation promises technical solutions to pressing challenges in the energy sector such as climate change and fossil fuel scarcity. Current academic and popular discussions of these solutions are dominated by a techno-utopian ideal, which sometimes obscures complex ethical and social challenges. Furthermore, technology assessment in the energy sector often focuses on environmental and economic aspects of sustainability, while issues of energy justice or broader ethical concerns are often a low priority. In this paper, we explore whether Nussbaum's version of the CA can be used as a systematic approach to the assessment of technological options that helps bring energy justice into the spotlight. Drawing on examples from two different areas of the energy system, namely, smart grids for the electricity sector and autonomous vehicles for the mobility sector, we demonstrate that the CA provides a normative framework that allows for aspects of individual deliberation and as such is well suited as a normative metric for the conception of energy justice in social science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the capability approach to analyse renewable energy developments on Aboriginal land in Australia's Pilbara and Kimberley regions. These regions in the north-west of Australia have very high rates of Indigenous land tenure, and are attractive for both solar and wind power generation, particularly as developing technology makes it economically feasible to transport power over large distances. They are also remote from Australia's electricity networks and often rely on expensive fossil fuels for electricity generation. Resident Aboriginal communities are among the most income-poor in Australia yet live in regions rich in renewable energy. Their ability to benefit from the opportunities offered by a transition to renewable sources of energy varies according to a number of factors. This paper examines the conditions under which Indigenous capabilities may be enhanced or inhibited, through examining three scales of energy generation: large-scale developments for export; remote utility-owned networks; and small-scale standalone off-grid applications. This paper will ask what capabilities can Indigenous people achieve from a just approach to a renewable energy transition in northern Australia, and what capabilities are required in order to gain maximum benefit from this current rapid energy transition? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study used the capability approach (CA) to explore the English learning experiences of 10 economically vulnerable higher education (HE) students in Colombia in order to better conceptualise English from a capability perspective. In doing so, this paper builds on the empirical and theoretical work of capability scholars which has looked at the role of English in educational settings. It highlights the importance of viewing linguistic capabilities as inchoative since viewing them as fully formed can obscure injustices. These injustices can include poor quality English language education (ELE), an unfavourable financial situation, and a lack of opportunities for exposure to and practice of English. This last-mentioned injustice foregrounds another important dimension of linguistic capabilities: their inter-subjective, relational nature. To aid in this conceptualisation, the paper also draws on Phillipson's [1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press] theory of linguistic imperialism to better illustrate how English is implicated in asymmetrical power relations which give rise to oppression and domination. However, this paper also shows how some injustices can be navigated by educationally resilient individuals. The findings of this thesis are therefore of interest not only to language policy experts and other language education stakeholders in developing contexts, but also to capability scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages with the experiences of refugee teachers through an identity-based conceptualisation of the capability approach to explore these teachers' social environment, working conditions, values, and lived experiences. The research builds on the teachers' capabilities literature to argue that norms, dynamics, and identities shape their political agency, opportunities, and constraints, providing nuanced understandings of their experiences as refugee teachers. Our aim is to narrate how they negotiate across different identities and mobilise their agency to be able to function as teachers and fit within their host countries. In doing so, we not only challenge the deficit model and oversimplified challenges experienced by teachers, but also explore the complexity and nuances of their journey of becoming and developing a teacher identity as a refugee under constrained working conditions. At the same time, teachers relentlessly build on their precarious teacher identities to work for their communities. The findings show that teachers build liminal identities in exile where the boundary between being a refugee and a teacher is simultaneously contested and embodied, but also key to their political agency and subjectivity of creating change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an account of migrant youths' experiences of access to education through a social initiative-driven school and highlights how these youths developed pathways of aspirations to work for the good of the community. In doing so, the paper also provides a lens to the issues of migration in Southern Africa and a context in which to understand how collective action (agency) for education can deeply transform marginalised migrants' aspirations and offer spaces of equality and agency for change. Drawing on data collected over a span of three years, the paper aims to illustrate how Albert Street School (Authority obtained to use original school name), established as a part of grass-root collective action, supports and impacts on migrants' capabilities and how these capabilities lead to aspirations for public good. The narrative methodology used to understand migrant youths' lives and experiences illustrates that collective capabilities have the potential to address different forms of disadvantage and distribute diverse and incommensurable good to local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education is regarded as a core capability, fundamental to enhancing other capabilities and well-being. Yet education capabilities may not necessarily be agency or well-being enhancing if they do not identify and alter the forms of social relations that marginalize young people. This paper departs from a discussion of Robeyns' [2017. Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined. Open Book Publishers] essential modules of the CA, in which she regards capabilities and functionings as value neutral. Yet, using only the essential modules of the CA can produce knowledge that may not reveal and disrupt inequalities, which are important for scholars using the CA in education. This paper discusses how postcolonial and feminist perspectives can be used to address critiques about the CA related to questions of power and the individualized and decontextualized nature of capabilities. These perspectives offer a relational analysis grounded in historical, social and economic relations that can impede a person from expanding and acting on their capabilities. The paper compares two groups of educational capabilities found in the CA scholarship and how a relational ontology can account for power constituted in social relations and structures. These two groups of educational capabilities are (1) affiliation, social networks, and recognition; and (2) critical thinking/practical reasoning; aspirations; and reimagining alternative futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transgender people frequently contend with serious challenges to living lives of dignity. They face elevated risks of violent assault, discrimination in employment and healthcare, and social, legal, and political hostility. This paper considers Martha C. Nussbaum's capabilities approach as a means of addressing the needs of transgender people. Following Nussbaum's lead, the analysis considers how the capabilities approach speaks to the disparities and obstacles faced by transgender people and which of Nussbaum's list of Central Capabilities must be secured to ensure that they are able to live flourishing lives of dignity. Further, the paper advances proposals to modify three of the Central Capabilities in order to comprehensively address the dignity needs of transgender people and, more broadly, all persons whose gender presentation does not conform to traditional expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue explores the workings of global goals as an instrument of global governance by numbers. These goals can alter power relations, affect the distribution of resources, reorganize national and local priorities, create perverse incentives for performance, and produce narratives that shape thinking and communication. As the articles in the 2014 JHDC special issue showed, the MDGs had complex, often distorting, consequences which were often in tension with the (intangible and difficult to quantify) principles of equity, human agency and participation as the cornerstone of development. This issue focuses on SDGs and includes five case studies of this localization process in aid programming in the Valencia, national reporting by Sweden, farming collectives in South Africa, indigenous communities in Australia and New Zealand, and infrastructure development in Ecuador and Pakistan. A sixth paper examines the role of metrics in including Neglected Tropical Diseases in the SDGs. These papers are diverse in the research questions they ask but engage with the common themes of global goals as a tool of global governance and their disruptive effects on power structures. Using the framework of data infrastructure—means of collection and analysis, social structures amongst actors, knowledge systems—this introduction highlights the insights that emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition, international development researchers may sometimes unknowingly reinforce and reproduce knowledge asymmetries, ignoring the knowledges that communities possess or the limits on their own reflexivity in the absence of epistemic humility. They conceptualise university capabilities towards climate justice as "the resources, systems, relationships, values and organisational culture that shape the capabilities of universities to promote social and environmental outcomes". They showcase how the dialogical and participatory nature of collaboration among the research team (local researchers, desk researchers, intermediaries in the field and PI) were crucial in bringing the realities of the communities where their research were conducted into epistemic production spaces to diversify knowledge and initiate a locally-rooted research process. [Extracted from the article]

Drawing from the capabilities approach (Sen 1999; Nussbaum 2000) and reflecting on Fricker's (2007) epistemic (in)justice, this paper seeks to explain how a participatory oral history project enabled youth researchers in Palestine to increase their capabilities to participate in political and social life in their communities by fostering their attachment to the land and by increasing understanding of their cultural heritage. Due to the occupation, Palestinian youth researchers have been exposed to epistemic inequalities. They have been systematically prevented from exercising their political functionings; they cannot voice their ideas on freedom, heritage and land. Findings show that through participatory research, the youth researchers took an active role in their communities to cultivate their epistemic abilities to be the narrators of their own stories and to create public advocacy. Whilst acknowledging the intersectional power dynamics and oppression that govern their lives, the paper explores the possibility of participatory research in redressing epistemic injustices caused by structural inequalities and in disrupting colonial relations of domination. The research indicates that even in politically fragile contexts, participatory research can promote critical reflection, challenge the social imaginaries stigmatising the youth, and provide opportunities to develop political capabilities for social and public advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has sought to explain a research process where a senior researcher felt the need to form an alliance with local researchers in order to enable more authentic research with marginalised youngsters. The aim of this paper is to suggest a useful model demonstrating the focal role of the primary investigator in creating an inclusive and participatory setting to produce knowledge challenging epistemic injustices. By cooperating with novice researchers in the countries we study, our methodology recognised and fostered their epistemic agency. As knowledge mediators, they helped us access many self-identified Muslim youth and native youths who are labelled as far-right in Europe. In addition to emphasising the relevance of local setting in knowledge production, the paper will also question the epistemic injustice that these youngsters have been exposed to. Both groups have been clustered in two distinct categories by previous research that has been overwhelmingly engaged in the civilisational discourse that sets these groups apart in two culturally, religiously and civilisationally defined boxes. We believe that our participatory commitment to producing high-quality knowledge will be helpful in the scientific consideration of socio-economically, politically, spatially, and nostalgically deprived youths, who feel pressurised by the perils of modernisation and globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an approach to poverty measurement based on the interpretation of poverty as a welfare loss, along the lines laid in Chakravarty [Chakravarty, S. R. 1983. "Ethically Flexible Measures of Poverty." Canadian Journal of Economics 16: 74–85]. A multidimensional poverty index is derived here from a social welfare function and a vector of poverty thresholds, following the aggregate achievement approach. Poverty is measured as the relative welfare loss due to the insufficient welfare of those agents whose achievements do not reach the minimum established. Using standard social welfare functions, we derive a welfare poverty measure that combines rather explicitly the different aspects of poverty measurement (incidence, intensity and inequality). We include an empirical application to the measurement of between-country poverty, based on the three dimensions that conform the Human Development Index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to the UNDP 2022 Special Report on Human Security in the Anthropocene (hereafter 'UNDP Special Report', UNDP 2022), and HDCA Human Security Thematic Group's sessions at the 2022 HDCA Antwerp conference, focused on interrogating the 'soul' of the human security concept. In order to facilitate the practical implementation of human security principles, I offer six integrative suggestions for a convergent view that reinforces human security's emancipatory critical and transformative potential, substantiating the UNDP Special Report's demand for greater solidarity: i) recalling the Stockholm Conference's agenda for global solidarity; ii) drawing on emancipatory legacies of established social movements; iii) applying differentiated measures to address vulnerability; iv) learning from indigenous and local insights on 'coordination' that emphasize relationality; v) decentralizing policy and practice; and, vi) An integrative perspective deepening the 'humane' interpretation of human security, taking on the Ogata-Sen recommendations for integrated policies, jointly emphasizing survival, livelihood and dignity. Keywords: Human security; Anthropocene; human development; UNDP Special Report 2022; Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment; Ogata-Sen Commission on Human Security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research and policy based on the Capability Approach inherently seeks to improve the lives of individuals and communities in a meaningful way. One operationalisation of this is the development of participatory wellbeing frameworks, which ask communities "what does wellbeing mean to you?". However, there has so far been very little understanding on the extent to which participatory wellbeing frameworks, and the Capability Approach more generally, have achieved meaningful impact. This study fills this gap by investigating the research and policy impacts achieved through participatory wellbeing studies. Drawing on a key informant study with 16 individuals who have undertaken participatory wellbeing studies in numerous contexts, this paper provides an initial insight into the extent to which such studies have achieved impact, and the barriers and enablers in doing so. The results highlight that while relatively few participatory wellbeing studies have directly impacted programmes, practice or policy, achieving indirect impacts such as greater awareness amongst policymakers, and starting a dialogue in the community, was commonplace. Process was found to be of great importance in achieving impact, highlighting that researchers and practitioners should ensure appropriate consultation processes are in place, and dedicate time and resources to dissemination and engagement. In particular, research partnerships were found to be particularly advantageous. While informants noted substantial barriers to achieving impact outside their control, the study highlights a number of enablers those undertaking work in this space can draw upon to achieve greater impact into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capability approach provides a broader view of Vocational and Technical Education (VTE), acknowledging its multiple purposes, including citizenship preparation for discussing and challenging the rules and practices prevailing in society. Based on ethnographic data, this paper seeks to understand how two Chilean high schools conceptualise their students and VTE, concerning their students' marginalisation, linking this to citizenship education. Each school presented a different awareness of students' marginality situation, and it was possible to observe how this meant different actions associated with citizenship education. Findings show that in the school with greater awareness of students' marginality, VTE takes elements from the capability approach and provides active citizenship training, while at the school with lower awareness of marginality, students are trained in more passive citizenship. The importance of citizenship education for VTE, the significance of the capability approach to transforming this education, and its potential impact on public policies and the construction of society are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) are intended to make the 17 goals and the 169 targets globally applicable with the necessary contextualisation so as to "leave no one behind" (LNOB). This paper examines how the SDGs can be localised to LNOB in the London boroughs of Newham and Tower Hamlets. These boroughs with one of the most ethnically diverse populations in the country are amongst the high grow boroughs of London but also with one of the highest social and economic deprivations. The research offers insights into how policy framework requires a targeted engagement with marginalised communities. The empowerment of such individuals and communities can in turn enable them to access opportunities that require higher levels of skills in their home boroughs and elsewhere in London. Additionally, the inclusion of cultural norms and practices can further strengthen the process to address the capability deprivations. This approach therefore has wider relevance to achieving the "LNOB" pledge of the SDGs. Globally, in both developed and developing countries, some marginalised communities living with intergenerational deprivations remain untouched by macro-level efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As acknowledged in the literature on Sustainable Human Development, the involvement of local levels of government in delivering the SDGs is an important issue and one that needs to be examined also through the capability approach. Through an analysis of the current state and evolution of the SDG localisation movement, and even in the response to the COVID-19 crisis, the paper identifies entry points that can be leveraged to enhance institutional capabilities to deliver sustainable development. Indeed, the SDG localisation movement is expanding in almost all regions, showing an increasing polysemy of meanings and modalities for local governments and stakeholders. The movement has witnessed valuable progress with the expansion of Voluntary Local and Subnational Reviews (VLRs and VSRs respectively), the transformation of limited consultative approaches into an enhanced involvement of a plurality of actors, including citizen participation, and the evolution from restricted spaces for dialogue to ambitious multilevel governance arrangements and multistakeholder co-creation efforts that, following the capability approach, recognise the diversity of abilities. These improvements have fostered local ownership and catalysed opportunities for joint achievements. After all, local governments, as the level of government closest to the population, are best placed to respond to their needs and priorities, and to leverage their collective capabilities and agency to develop common pathways using the SDGs as enablers of change. All these efforts promote the production of collective knowledge which can progressively transform local institutions and support the evolution of multilevel governance processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new index of multidimensional poverty, called the Global Correlation Sensitive Poverty Index (G-CSPI), which has three interesting features. First, it encompasses three dimensions: decent work, education and access to drinking water and sanitation, which largely overlap with the list of ideal dimensions obtained by expanding the Constitutional Approach, although it does not include direct health measures. Second, it uses a distribution-sensitive measure that can also be decomposed into the three poverty components: incidence, intensity and inequality. Finally, the G-CSPI is an individual-based, rather than household-based index, although restricted to individuals 15–65 years of age. It is thus able to detect intra-household differences in poverty among members within that age-range. To have a full picture of multidimensional poverty at the country level, it should then be complemented by specific poverty measures for children and the elderly. Being centred on individuals and sensitive to inequality, the G-CSPI is coherent with the overarching principle of the 2030 Agenda "leaving no one behind". Using recent estimates of the G-CSPI for 104 countries, the empirical analysis reveals that the index is highly robust to different specifications, and that, as expected, fragile countries experience the largest levels of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a systematic assessment of the alleged exceptionality of Malaysia's development progress and its likely explanations, in comparative perspective. Using cross-country regressions and aggregate indices of education, health, poverty and gender equality outcomes, we produce evidence based on conditional correlations, offering three findings. First, the results support the hypothesis that Malaysia's human development progress has been exceptional compared with that of countries with a similar level of economic development, primarily for the period 1970–1990. Next, we show that such progress is associated with a combination of income-mediated and support-led mechanisms, including Malaysia's early emphasis on education and health inputs and infrastructure development. Finally, we look at long-term roots of its progress, arguing that early advantage in state capacity may be at the origin of Malaysia's successful implementation of poverty reduction and growth-enhancing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the extent of inequalities of higher education opportunities in many contexts, this paper investigates how students from marginalized backgrounds make it to university, gaining access “against the odds”. While it is becoming increasingly common to draw on notions of individualized responsibility, such as the construct of “grit”, to explain persistence in challenging situations, this paper argues that individualized understandings are insufficient to take account of the interaction between individual agency and social contexts from which the capability for educational resilience emerges. The argument is theoretically grounded in the capabilities approach, and empirically on narrative interviews with South African first year students from marginalized backgrounds. The paper identifies three internal capabilities that underpin resilient responses of students, and shows how these internal capabilities are influenced, positively and negatively, by conversion factors at the levels of family, school and community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]