Suchergebnisse

The tension that exists between the worldviews of Indigenous peoples and government reporting frameworks is what Taylor has termed 'the recognition or translation space'. The meaningful operation of the 'recognition space' hinges on four key points – firstly, why measure wellbeing, secondly, how wellbeing is conceptualised, thirdly, by what process the wellbeing measures are decided, and finally, who makes those decisions. Sen's capability approach is concerned with development as a process of expanding people's freedoms to live the life they have reason to value. It is in this spirit of freedom that Sen has not prescribed a fixed list of functioning and capabilities. The open-ended nature of this approach, in letting the identification of important capabilities be dependent on specific contexts and people's own values, aligns with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples which asserts that Indigenous people must be agents of their own development. This paper contributes to the understanding of what a good life means by augmenting the capability approach to incorporate Indigenous worldviews. Through participatory research methodologies we define and select indicators of wellbeing which are grounded in the lived experiences of the Yawuru people in Broome, Western Australia. ; The research received both financial and in-kind support from the following organisations to which the authors are very grateful: Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (Australian National University), Kimberley Institute Limited, Nulungu Institute (University of Notre Dame), Nyamba Buru Yawuru, Nagula Jarndu, Bottles of Australia and Yawuru Prescribed Body Corporate.

Forty years ago Amartya Sen delivered his Tanner Lecture, 'Equality of What?', in which he introduced to the world a novel approach to the idea of equality by way of the notion of 'basic capability' as 'a morally relevant dimension'. We can now see with hindsight that Sen's argument - that we should focus upon equality of basic capabilities ('a person being able to do certain basic things') - launched what has become an academic armada now proceeding under the flag of 'the capability approach'. While that flag has ventured far and wide and engaged many area of inquiry, this volume of essays is the first to explore how the capability approach (the CA) might shed light upon labour law.0Three dimensions of the CA's potential for illuminating labour law are examined. Part I enquires into the nature of the basic relationship between CA and labour law - do they share common ground or disagree about what is important? Can the CA provide a normative 'foundation' for labour law? Part II goes further by examining the relationship of the CA and other well-established perspectives on labour law, including economics, history, critical theory, restorative justice, and human rights. 0Part III examines the possible relevance of the CA to a range of specific labour law issues, such as freedom of association, age discrimination in the workplace, trade, employment policy, and sweatshop goods

Flexicurity is a European policy agenda seeking to increase both flexibility and security in the labour-market. This book argues that it needs a revision: Although flexicurity is set out to change the way Europeans work and live, and even though it is being justified by workers' needs, flexicurity lacks of a clear and democratically justified vision of society. Flexicurity is confronted here with Amartya Sen's capability-approach, a paradigm of well-being evaluation. How is flexicurity related to a concept of employment as part of a way of life which people have reason to value? How capability-friendly are established flexicurity-indicators? It is thus shown how the capability-approach can be used in the field of labour-market and social policy.

AbstractIn this article, we provide a balanced critique of Sen's Capability Approach (CA) with reference to its potential to inform career guidance theory and practice. There are varying understandings and interpretations of the CA. Some see capabilities as universal, whilst others favour a more relativist view. The CA is also vulnerable to misunderstanding. Critiques based on misunderstanding are easily dismissed, so our focus is on substantive conceptual and practical critiques. Three main challenges are explored: conceptual debates about the nature of freedom and justice; limitations arising from the disciplinary origins of the CA; and challenges in operationalising the CA.

AbstractPoverty analysis is in the midst of a multidimensional "turn" due, in part, to the growing awareness of the limitations of relative income measures of poverty. In this paper, we argue that the conceptualisation of poverty remains a neglected aspect of this multidimensional turn to date, and demonstrate that the counter-intuitive results which flow from relative income analyses are not problems of measurement, but are entirely consistent with the conceptualisation of poverty under Peter Townsend's dominantPoverty as Relative Deprivationframework. In response to these problems we articulate an alternative framework,Poverty as Capability Deprivation, drawing on Amartya Sen's capability approach, and argue that this provides more persuasive explanations as to why some nations have greater poverty than others and why poverty remains a problem even in the richest nations.

This article discusses the relevance of Rawls' Theory and Sen's Idea of justice to contemporary planning theory by drawing on the writings of the two philosophers. Besides providing a comprehensive account of what the two respective frameworks imply for the foundation of public planning and for the relevant evaluative practice, this article proposes an interpretation of these theories that overcomes their polarization into competitive frameworks. The main position of this article is that the notion of capabilities set forward by Sen is in fact an extension of, rather than in tension with, the notion of primary goods set forward by Rawls. By discussing a number of simple planning cases, this article concludes that by connecting the sphere of just principles with deliberation on the actions which can advance those principles, Rawlsian "justice in planning" provides the basis for Senian "planning for justice."

1 Introduction: Purpose and Summary -- 2 Welfare Economics and the Capability Approach -- 3 Specification and Measurement in the Capability Approach -- 4 An Economic Modeling of Individual Capability -- 5 Philosophical Modification of the Economic Modeling of the Capability Approach: Adaptation, Positionality, and Identity -- 6 From Rawls's Social Contract to Sen's Social Choice -- 7 Freedom and Death: Why Did She Not Apply for Public Assistance? -- 8 What Political Liberalism and the Welfare State Left Behind: Chance and Gratitud -- 9 The Birth and Growth of Modern Social Choice Theory: From Arrow to Sen -- 10 Final Remarks: Economic Philosophy of Amartya Sen -- Epilogue -- References -- Appendix 1 The Capability Theory and Welfare Reform -- Appendix 2 A class of fair distribution rules `a la Rawls and Sen -- Appendix 3 Securing basic well-being for all.

The Capability Approach has been adopted as a theoretical framework for official Poverty and Wealth Reports by the German government. For the first time, this paper provides information on the use of the Capability Approach in this reporting process to international readers. We show the background and processes that might have led the government to adopt Amartya Sen's Capability Approach as a framework for the reports and describe the Capability-related structure and main contents of the recent 3rd Poverty and Wealth Report. We also explain why the extension of the Capability Approach from poverty to wealth issues in German reports may be promising also for analyses of capability deprivation in general. Finally, we discuss major shortcoming and challenges of the reporting and end with a brief conclusion.

In 2015 the Western Cape Government (WCG) in South Africa introduced the e-Learning Game Changer initiative to offer teachers in public schools information and communications technology (ICT) resources to improve their pedagogy. Despite the efforts by the WCG to improve ICT use for teaching in public schools, successful ICT integration hardly takes place in several historically disadvantaged (albeit affluent) schools, which constitute a minority of schools in the Western Cape. The primary aim of this study was to investigate those conversion factors allowing or impeding teachers in two public primary schools in the Western Cape from attaining the potential capabilities required for successful ICT integration. Amartya Sen's capability approach was used as the study's theoretical framework. The study employed a qualitative research method involving 10 educators observed during their lessons and interviewed. The findings confirmed that only a few conversion factors, such as the attainment of ICT skills through a community of practice and university training by the teachers, provided them with capabilities to use ICT to deliver curriculum content and perform basic ICT skills effectively. Several conversion factors, including teachers' age, provincial and school policies, infrastructure and resources, prevented these teachers from realising their ICT potential. This study contends that the White Paper on e-Education (2004) policy might benefit from the results, which could help to build or rethink programmes that encourage continual teacher training.Transdisciplinarity Contribution: This research shows that policymakers need to take into consideration the conversion factors that may impact teachers' capabilities to deliver curriculum utilising ICTs. This study's findings provide new light on how these conversion factors limit or expand teachers' ICT capabilities.