Rethinking human well-being: a dialogue with Amartya Sen

Giri, Ananta Kumar

doi:10.1002/1099-1328(200010)12:7<1003::aid-jid698>3.0.co;2-u

Cited by 34 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…We noted the purported resulting weakness in terms of sociological and psychological theory. Gasper (2010) describes the lacuna identifi ed by several authors concerning the human development approach's awareness of 'the social' (e.g., Douglas and Ney 1998, Apthorpe 1997, Giri 2000. Similar points are made by Feldman and Gellert (2006) and Fukuda-Parr (2003a.…”

Section: Human Development Approach's Individualistic Orientation As mentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Gasper (2002) adds a more ontologically substantive critique, arguing that Sen does not have a thought-through conception of 'personhood', and that this leads to a thin and unduly individualistic analysis of well-being. Giri (2000Giri ( : 1016 goes further: 'Sen's agenda of human well-being suff ers from a fundamental problem of dualism between self and other, egotism and altruism. Overcoming this dualism is crucial for realizing human well-being but calls for the work of a creative and refl ective self, a matter that has received little attention from Sen'.…”

Section: Personhood Social Relationships and Collective Capabilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Individual and the Social: A Comparative Study of Quality of Life, Social Quality and Human Development Approaches

Phillips¹

2011

International Journal of Social Quality

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Th e overall aim of this paper is to compare the human development (HD) and social quality (SQ) approaches in the context of quality of life in general and in relation to development in particular. It commences with a broad overview of several perspectives including: prudential values; Sen's capability approach; Berger-Schmitt and Noll's overarching quality of life construct; Phillips' quality of life construct; and Doyal and Gough's Th eory of Human Needs. Th en HD and SQ are introduced. HD emphasises well-being, enlarging people's choices, living a long and healthy life, being educated and enjoying a decent standard of living. All this is predicated on the UNDP's insistence that it is people who comprise the real wealth of nations: HD emphasises the well-being of individuals.Two sets of tensions are then discussed: fi rst between the ability to exercise individual freedom and the constraints upon freedom imposed by the provision of compulsory education of children which facilitates that freedom (an institutional threshold to 'the social'); and secondly, the relationship between personhood, social relationships and collective capabilities (an interactive threshold to the social). Th is is followed by an exploration of whether HD's individualistic orientation is a weakness or whether its explicit incompleteness is a strength. Th e paper concludes with a discussion of possible ways forward in developing the HD construct, either by incorporating the notion of 'the social' within its framework or else via strategies of using it in partnership with the social quality theory that can both extend it and provide it with a richer theoretical justifi cation.

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Section: Human Development Approach's Individualistic Orientation As mentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Personhood Social Relationships and Collective Capabilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Individual and the Social: A Comparative Study of Quality of Life, Social Quality and Human Development Approaches

Phillips¹

2011

International Journal of Social Quality

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“…Residents of informal settlements are typically denied land tenure, leaving them vulnerable to eviction; they are often marginalized in decision making; they face poverty and social exclusion; and they are denied basic infrastructure and services such as water supply and sanitation (UN‐Habitat, ). Such conditions contribute to lower quality of life for the majority of informal settlers, and severely curtail their abilities to live secure, prosperous lives (Giri, ; Subbaraman et al ., ). Among the disparities between the formal and the informal city, access to water services such as water supply and sanitation represents one of the most marked.…”

Section: Understanding Water Services and Capabilities In Informal Urmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Quest for Water, Rights and Freedoms: Informal Urban Settlements in India

Gimelli

Rogers

Bos

2018

Int J Urban Regional Res

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In this article, we draw on the narratives of residents and development workers to understand what freedoms hinder and enable access to water services in informal settlements in the Indian cities of Faridabad, Delhi and Mumbai. We show that although development practice and thinking in the water sector often frame water deficiencies as politically neutral technical and governance challenges, residents and development workers on the ground identify a lack of freedoms relating to first of all, residents’ rights to the city and its resources, and secondly, meaningful engagement between residents and the political establishment as key causes for inadequate access to water services. Our findings indicate that water‐service development efforts can be more effective if they include strategies to strengthen informal settlers’ rights to the city through a politicization of public engagement. We discuss the implications of our findings for practice and outline a future research agenda geared towards operationalizing our key findings.

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“…But other work on human security (for example Burgess et al 2007, Mushakoji 2003, goes far deeper, and can enrich conceptions of personhood and self-development in the human development approach (cf. Giri 2000). Work on 'social quality' can complement these eff orts.…”

Section: A Review Of Contrasts and Suggestionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Human and the Social: a Comparison of the Discourses of Human Development, Human Security and Social Quality

Gasper¹

2011

International Journal of Social Quality

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Th is paper presents a structured comparison of the social quality approach with the UNDPled 'human development' approach and its sister work (especially in the UN system and Japan) on 'human security'. Th rough clarifi cation of their respective foci, roles and underlying theoretical and value assumptions, the paper suggests that partnership of the social quality approach with these 'human' approaches appears possible and relevant for each side.

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Rethinking human well-being: a dialogue with Amartya Sen

Cited by 34 publications

References 7 publications

The Individual and the Social: A Comparative Study of Quality of Life, Social Quality and Human Development Approaches

The Individual and the Social: A Comparative Study of Quality of Life, Social Quality and Human Development Approaches

The Quest for Water, Rights and Freedoms: Informal Urban Settlements in India

The Human and the Social: a Comparison of the Discourses of Human Development, Human Security and Social Quality

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