Beyond the pentagon prison of sustainable livelihood approaches and towards livelihood trajectories approaches

Abstract

The Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) is promoted as a useful way to centre development on the needs of those who are most vulnerable, but is critiqued for inflexibility and ignoring important power relations. In light of the rigidities in using a formulaic SLA, this conceptual paper suggests a practical suite of tools that are in use in livelihoods research and development practice, and refocuses them to include adaptive strategies of vulnerable peoples to resource management pressures. The Pentagon Prison of five capitals can overwhelm both the researcher and researched and while possibly useful in identifying livelihoods gaps, misses all-encompassing power relations, and reduces complexities to quantitative units. In arguing for a shift from the Pentagon Prison of SLA towards a flexible livelihoods trajectory approach, in particular for a research project on livelihood adaptations in Lao PDR, I identify a feasible research and development approach that more meaningfully reflects the lives of those participating in that research. I propose that the livelihood trajectories approach opens up the way data are gathered and can lead to holistic understandings of the complex realities of peoples' adaptive strategies, incorporating strategies from short to long term, and proactive, reactive and inactive techniques.

Understanding long-term livelihood resilience of resettled ethnic groups in the Yali Falls Dam basin, Central Highlands of Vietnam

“…Some scholars recommended that conducting hybrid research on livelihoods should move beyond livelihood capitals, the "Pentagon Prison", to a livelihood trajectory approach which supports quantitative assessment of livelihood capitals with narratives of livelihoods (Sallu et al, 2010, McLean, 2015. This study confirms that the mixed methods combining quantitative assessment of livelihood capitals and livelihood trajectory are powerful and provides good insights into understanding of the livelihood reconstruction of the resettled people.…”

Primary Sector Value Chains, Poverty Reduction, And Rural Development Challenges In The Philippines

“…Without effective facilitation agri/aquabusiness value chains in rural areas face a significant chance of persistent upstream poverty and power asymmetries (Mitchel and Coles ; Béné and others ). The empirical analysis follows Challies and Murray's () approach linking the value chain to the five livelihood capitals and then McClean () focus on livelihood strategies and trajectories in order to create a more dynamic analysis. The next section briefly discusses the state of agriculture and fisheries in the Philippines.…”

Viable insertion in agribusiness value chains? Seaweed farming after Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) in Iloilo Province, the Philippines

“…This perspective enables us to scrutinize the impact of a natural hazard on value chain dynamics, the behaviour of dominant intermediaries and the changing socio‐economic vulnerability of smallholders and rural communities. The remainder of this section discusses two strategies that mitigate the risks and impact of natural hazards and enhance livelihood assets and outcomes: a reactive strategy, microinsurance, and a proactive adaptive strategy, diversification (McLean, ).…”