Community Psychology and the Capabilities Approach

Abstract

What makes for a good life? The capabilities approach to this question has much to offer community psychology, particularly with respect to marginalized groups. Capabilities are freedoms to engage in valued social activities and roles—what people can do and be given both their capacities, and environmental opportunities and constraints. Economist Amartya Sen’s focus on freedoms and agency resonates with psychological calls for empowerment, and philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s specification of requirements for a life that is fully human provides an important guide for social programs. Community psychology’s focus on mediating structures has much to offer the capabilities approach. Parallels between capabilities, as enumerated by Nussbaum, and settings that foster positive youth development, as described in a National Research Council Report (Eccles and Gootman (Eds) in Community programs to promote youth development. National Academy Press, Washington, 2002) suggest extensions of the approach to children. Community psychologists can contribute to theory about ways to create and modify settings to enhance capabilities as well as empowerment and positive youth development. Finally, capabilities are difficult to measure, because they involve freedoms to choose but only choices actually made or enacted can be observed. The variation in activities or goals across members of a setting provides a measure of the capabilities that the setting fosters.

Complex recovery: Understanding the lives of formerly homeless adults with complex needs

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Household empowerment as the key to eradicate poverty incidence

“…Joint actions and pure public politics can become the strength of poor people through the participation in local activities. However, researchers pointed out that building of individual and collective capabilities to employ in social events is a long-run process (Shinn, 2015).…”

“We Always Think You’re Here Permanently”: The Paradox of “Permanent” Housing and Other Barriers to Recovery-Oriented Practice in Supportive Housing Services

“…“Opportunities for skill-building” and more specifically, opportunities for physical, intellectual, psychological, emotional, and social skill-building, have been framed in the literature as essential components of a “capability-enhancing” service environment (Shinn, 2015) in parallel with Martha Nussbaum's (2000, 2011) “central human functional capabilities”. Nussbaum (2000) argues that these capabilities must be satisfied (at least to a minimal degree) in order for individuals to be afforded a fully human life, echoing the goals of a recovery-oriented system of care.…”