Justice and the Environment in Nussbaum's “Capabilities Approach”

Holland, Breena

doi:10.1177/1065912907306471

Cited by 127 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Many Indigenous and rural peoples around the world have traditionally relied on the natural resource base. With increased knowledge through public participation processes, and through secure land and resource rights, they could be empowered to ensure that local ecosystems continue to be the source of larger social capability, a meta-capability, which they need (Holland 2008). Greater space for people to advance the goals they have reason to value, combined with improved public reasoning (Sen 2009) and participation, may also transform the relationship between authorities and community members into one of non-domination (Forst 2014), and bring about structural changes that allow for shared power in decision-making.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although these capabilities depend on a number of factors, in the Trindade case almost all of the capabilities identified are connected to natural resources and land tenure, raising the possibility of land being a larger social capability, a meta-capability (Holland 2008). The discussions by the women and men related to health, quality family life, taking care of family, and happiness, were discussed in the context of remaining in the community and continuing with the multitude of activities that make up their lifestyles and livelihoods.…”

Section: Capability Prioritiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Using the capability approach to analyze contemporary environmental governance challenges in coastal Brazil

Bockstael

Berkes

2017

International Journal of the Commons

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Conservation and development are often framed as a dichotomy, requiring trade-offs. But trade-offs can be due to the particular political situation and to relationships of domination, and are not necessarily the inevitable result of an intractable situation. Environmental governance in Brazil is in transition, with growing tension between those who seek a social-environmental approach and those who are strictly concerned with preservation. This article applies the capability approach framework to analyze the human development situation in Trindade, Brazil, by answering key questions that are central to this approach (1) What kind of lives are people able to live? Are they able to be or do what they have reason to value? and (2) What is the quality of economic, social and political relations in Trindade? Three main 'shocks' emerge as having major impacts on the way of life of community members: (a) Conflict with external commercial developers, (b) Paving of access road into community, and (c) Enforcement of a Federal Protected Area on historical community land and sea space. Capability priorities were established for women, men, older adults and people with disabilities. The impacts of development and conservation policies are different for the four groups, as are the priorities for capabilities. There is no single capability that is found in the top three priorities across the four groups. The case in Trindade demonstrates that space for public participation is not sufficient to ensure that the people who are trying to improve their wellbeing and be the author of their own lives can influence the outcome, and also shows that regular contact and connection does not necessarily create empathy, as Sen assumed in The Idea of Justice. Erika Bockstael and Fikret Berkes

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Capability Prioritiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using the capability approach to analyze contemporary environmental governance challenges in coastal Brazil

Bockstael

Berkes

2017

International Journal of the Commons

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“…The capabilities approach offers such a framework that has by now gained prevalence in social policies and studies on human development, as has been mentioned in the introduction. It is also already used to elucidate the notion of human well-being in the context of sustainable development (Comim et al 2007;De Vries and Peterson 2009;Holland 2008;Ott and Döring 2008;Schultz et al 2008;Van Ootegem and Spillemaeckers 2009;Omann et al 2010). In the present study, the approach is introduced to spell out the AoP and its impact categories as well as to rethink previous classifications.…”

Section: Impact Categories Subcategories In the Guidelinesmentioning

confidence: 96%

A conceptual framework for impact assessment within SLCA

Reitinger

Dumke

Barosevcic

et al. 2011

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose This paper aims at spelling out the area of protection (AoP), namely the general concept of human well-being and the impact categories in social life cycle assessment (SLCA). The applicability of the so-called capabilities approach-a concept frequently used for evaluating human lives-is explored. It is shown how the principles of the capabilities approach can be transferred to the impact assessment within SLCA. Methods The literature concerning the AoP and the impact assessment has been critically reviewed from an applied philosophy perspective. The capabilities approach has been adopted for defining both the AoP and the impact categories.Results The main results are the following: (1) The AoP is defined as autonomy, well-being freedom and fairness; (2) using the dimensions which constitute well-being together with the concept of fairness eight impact categories are proposed: life, knowledge and aesthetic experience, work and play, friendship, self-integration, self-expression, transcendence and fairness itself and (3) by examining the 'Guide to Social LCA: Methodological Sheets', it is demonstrated that our proposed framework can be used for structuring the previous work on impact assessment. ConclusionsThe capability approach is one possibility for addressing the question 'what is of importance in a human life?' When applied in a practical field, like SLCA, this framework is not only useful for structuring data but also for disclosing our own normative assumptions about what counts as valuable in a human life. Thus, the normative evaluation is more coherent.

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“…Another way of uniting human and environmental concerns within the capability approach has been to introduce ecosystem functionings as a meta‐capability, without which no human functioning is possible at all (Holland , , ) . Holland (: 24) conceptualizes an ecological meta‐capability as a human capability, as it refers to the ecological conditions underpinning the ability of humans to live a flourishing human life.…”

Section: On the Human And Natural Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%