Papers from the January
2003 inaugural workshop
At this workshop, papers were presented by the four
collaboration countries reviewing their current state of poverty
and wellbeing.
Also four framework papers were presented
1. Resource Profiles and the Social
and Cultural Construction of Wellbeing
2. Needs, Capabilities and Wellbeing: Relating
the Universal and the Local
3. Quality of Life and Wellbeing
4. Discursive Repertoires
and the Negotiation of Wellbeing
Country Papers - Abstracts
BANGLADESH
- I.A. Khan and A. Ali
The paper presents an overview of the current understandings of
poverty and wellbeing in Bangladesh based on existing literature.
The paper is divided into three sections. The first is an overview
of the poverty situation examining magnitudes, trends and poverty
groupings. The next section looks at how poverty is conceptualised
in different approaches: consumption based, Participatory Poverty
Analysis (PPA), resource profile and livelihoods approaches. The
final section presents two methodological challenges: (i) the mismatch
between conceptual understanding and operationalisation, and (ii)
issues related to integration of different methods.
The full paper is under revision and will be available
later in the year. For details contact wed@bath.ac.uk.
ETHIOPIA -
A. Pankhurst and A. Gebre
After a brief introduction to Ethiopia, the paper looks at the current
data on poverty and inequality and discusses specific issues relevant
to wellbeing in the country; the latter includes drought and famine,
war and conflict, the HIV-AIDS pandemic and inequality. Inequality
can appear in different contexts: wealth, rural-urban, regional,
gender, age, class, religion, ethnicity and caste. Changing views
on the conceptualisation of poverty by governments, donors, NGOs,
academics and local people are discussed. Static versus dynamic
models of poverty and the use of quantitative and qualitative data
are discussed. The paper concludes by identifying methodological
challenges of studying particular social groups: pastoralists, migrants,
internally displaced and homeless people, beggars, street children,
occupational groups of craft workers and female urban occupations.
The full paper is under revision and will be available
later in the year. For details contact wed@bath.ac.uk.
PERU - T. Altamirano
and A. Figueroa
This revised version of the paper presents an overview
of published literature on poverty and related concepts in Peru.
Its purpose, explained further in Section 1, is to contribute to
universal and interdisciplinary understanding of poverty, while
at the same time giving due weight to discipline-specific and local
understandings. Sections 2 to 4 organise past contributions to the
literature on poverty in Peru into economics, anthropology and sociology
streams. Section 5 argues that each stream can be incorporated into
a single framework, centred on the concepts of inclusion and exclusion.
A revised version of the paper is
available. Click
here
THAILAND -
A. Masae and B. Promphakping
Thailand has been a country with significant economic growth in
the past. Before it faced economic crisis at the beginning of 1997,
it had seen one of the highest GDP growth rates in the world. Despite
the country's economic achievement, poverty issues have always been
significant.
The paper presents an overview of the current understandings and
policy issues related to poverty and wellbeing in Thailand. Special
focus is given to north eastern and southern regions of the country.
The first part of the paper deals with national level issues: the
relationship between development and poverty, rural development
plans with focus on poverty, defining and measurement of poverty,
the economic crisis and the setback to poverty reduction, and the
current policy regime. The second and third parts emphasize on poverty
issues and current situations in southern and north eastern regions
of the country. The fourth part discusses methodological challenges
in studying poverty and wellbeing in Thailand.
The full paper is under revision and will be available
later in the year. For details contact wed@bath.ac.uk.
Conceptual Papers - Abstracts
Resource
Profiles and the Social and Cultural Construction of Wellbeing
A. McGregor and B. Kebede
The paper presents the ontological basis of the Resource Profiles
Framework (RPF) by positing it in an agency-structure context. The
basic elements of the research programme (people, physical things,
relationships and structure) that provide the basis for research
under WeD are identified. In particular, the inter-relationship
between culture and structure is examined. It argues for integrating
culture into the analysis of needs, wellbeing and poverty, an area
undeveloped in the literature. Moving on from the more anthropological
roots of the RPF the paper then explores recent developments in
economics relevant to the research in WeD. Throughout the connection
between the RPF, the Theory of Human Needs and the Quality of Life
literature both on conceptual and empirical levels is explored.
The paper concludes by presenting some aspects of the fieldwork;
types of data to be collected and instruments to be implemented
are discussed.
The full paper is under revision and will be available
shortly. For details contact wed@bath.ac.uk.
Needs, Capabilities and
Wellbeing: Relating the Universal and the Local
D. Clark and I. Gough
The first part of this paper addresses a central question of the
WeD research programme: the relation between 'the universal and
the local'. It contends that local perspectives, preferences and
values can be legitimately challenged under certain circumstances.
It then turns to three major contributions to developing a universalist
conception of wellbeing: Amartya Sen's and Martha Nussbaum's work
on functionings and capabilities, and Len Doyal and Ian Gough's
theory of human need. The relation between these, especially need
theory, and the WHOQOL and Research Profiles approaches is then
briefly discussed in part two. Finally, it draws out some implications
of the universal-local distinction for the future research methodology
of the WeD programme.
The full paper is under revision and will be available
shortly. For details contact wed@bath.ac.uk.
Quality of Life and
Wellbeing
L. Camfield and S. Skevington
The purpose of the review is to integrate the fields of quality
of life (QOL) and subjective wellbeing (SWB) and to look at the
implications of this body of work for research on poverty, inequality
and human needs. First we critically appraise important factors
that are known to impact on SWB. Then we consider recent developments
in the assessment of quality of life starting from a health perspective
and extending its conceptualisation into the general field. We examine
advances and shortcomings in theories and methods, and identify
areas that still require conceptual elaboration and technical development.
Lastly we compare the three different frameworks adopted by the
WeD group, and summarise some key issues that will affect explorations
of QOL in cross-cultural studies of poverty.
The full paper is under revision and will be available
shortly. For details contact wed@bath.ac.uk.
Discursive
Repertoires and the Negotiation of Wellbeing
H. Dean
This revised version of the
paper:
· Links the three main WeD frameworks - the resource profiles,
human needs and quality
of life approaches - by focusing on the ‘discursive repertoires’
through which the different
meanings of human well-being are commonly talked about and understood.
· Defines such repertoires in relation to the overlap between
two kinds of everyday
conceptual distinction: that between local and universal perspectives
on the world; and that
between 'solidaristic' and 'contractarian' understandings of the
relationship between the
human individual and society (the former assumes humankind to be
fundamentally cooperative,
the latter assumes it to be competitive).
· Explores the competing repertoires through which people
negotiate with each other and
come to understand their practical survival strategies, the naming
and claiming of their
needs, and their personal identity as embodied beings.
· Discusses the methodological implications and the theoretical
relevance for the
understanding of welfare regimes in developing countries.
The revised version
is available. Click
here |
