The Human Development and Capability Approach in Conversation

In this episode, we discuss energy justice and what a capabilities fromework can bring to it. We were joined by Dr Nathan Wood who helped put the episode together, Professors Lucie Middlemiss and Joohee Lee. 

Professor Lucie Middlemiss

https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/see/staff/1422/professor-lucie-middlemiss

Energy poverty and social relations: A capabilities approach:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.05.002

Professor Joohee Lee

Operationalising Capability Thinking in the Assessment of Energy Poverty Relief Policies: Moving from Compensation-based to Empowerment-focused Policy Strategies:

https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2021.1887108

Dr Nathan Wood;

Nathan is a postdoc at the Fair Energy Transition Center in the Netherlands, based at Utrecht University and Eindhoven University of Technology. He recently completed his PhD Energy, Capability, and Justice: a foundation for a normative account of energy systems, in which he focused on using moral and political philosophy to better understand the ethical problems arising from energy systems and their governance.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7b7Qdp4AAAAJ&hl=en&inst=7240083048524121927&oi=sra

Tensions, capabilities, and justice in climate change mitigation of fossil fuels

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.02.014

In this episode, we're led by Graciela Tonon, who's recently edited a new book on urban inequalities.

This book proposes an interdisciplinary and multidimensional perspective of urban inequalities based on a range of theoretical, methodological, and professional approaches. Chapters consider different types of inequalities: in health, education, age, housing, energy, space, civic rights, social exclusion, ethnicity, poverty, segregation, work status, nutrition, public policies, democracy, human rights, technology, digital learning, subjective well-being, environment, and climate change. Contributions analyze the situation of different groups: children, youth, and indigenous people. The book highlights the importance of policy-making to overcome inequalities and addresses the key role of citizen participation.

Check Urban Inequalities: a multidimensional and international perspective out at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-59746-6

Pariticipants

Graciela H. Tonon

Graciela holds a PhD in political science (USAL-Argentina). She is a full professor and director UNI-COM, Social Studies Institute at Universidad Nacional de Lomas de Zamora, Argentina and director Research Center in Social Sciences (CICS-UP) at Universidad de Palermo, Argentina. Graciela is a fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association (2013-present). She is vice-president of Publications International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (2023-2024). She received the ISQOLS Distinguish Service Award for Substantial Contributing to a Better Understanding of Quality-of-Life Studies (2016). Her fields of expertise are quality of life, Capability Approach, children, qualitative research Methods, Community, Higher Education, Inequalities, Public Policy and Social Work. https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0003-1892-7958

Peter Krause

Peter is based at the Department Socio Economic Panel (SOEP) German Institute of Economic Research (DIW, Berlin). His research topics and working areas include Income Distribution and Dynamics, Social Indicators, Capabilities, Quality of Life, Inequality, Well-being.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter-Krause-8

Jon Hall 

Jon is a policy specialist in the Human Development Report Office, UNDP

Jon graduated in Mathematics, has a master's degree in Statistics (University of London) and another in Public Service Administration (Australian and New Zealand School of Government). Before joining the Human Development Report Office, Jon spent seven years working for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where he led the Global Project on Measuring Societal Progress, which was instrumental in preparing the path of the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission for the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. He had previously worked for the Australian Bureau of Statistics and was the lead author of the first two issues of "Australian Measures of Progress", which won a national award in 2003.

Jhonatan Clausen

Jhonatan is the director of IDHAL Latin American Institute of Human Development, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), and a professor of economics. he holds a PhD in Social and Policy Sciences - International Development from the University of Bath, UK. He teaches human development and economics (PUCP) https://www.pucp.edu.pe/profesor/jhonatan-clausen-lizarraga

Jack Simpson

Jack is a visiting lecturer at the University of Leeds. He holds an MA in PPE from the University of York and a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Leeds. He is also Officer at Large and Fellow at the Human Development and Capability Association, where he has been on the executive council since 2019. He is also on the board of the International Development Ethics Association.

In this episode we speak to organisers of the Early Careers Researchers and Practitioners Network. 

Organisers Raphael Ng, Abigail Lennox, Dorothy Ferary & Gareth Wall join us to discuss the group, it's history and it's purpose. 

The network is a really vibrant space for capabilities work. You can find out more including how to join it here: https://hd-ca.org/thematic_group/early-career-researchers-practitioners-network

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Some more info... 

The overall purpose of Early Career Researchers and Practitioners Network (ECRPN) is:

To facilitate a community that supports early career members in their research and transition from their stage as a student towards a professional phase of their career, and to also foster exchange and integrate practitioner’s knowledge and experience.

Objectives

• Offer a platform where members can develop and achieve their capabilities as growing researchers and practitioners in capabilities work.
• Build a space and coordinate activities to share knowledge and experience, and collaborate across disciplines in research, and cross-sectorally with practitioners.
• Organize events aimed at advancing research and skills development.
• Events fostering practitioner interactions.
• Coordinate support and build community amongst the early career scholars and practitioners. Stimulate interaction between established HDCA scholars and early career scholars.
• Strengthen the interchanges between members, practitioners and established scholars in capabilities work.

Activities

• Online co-writing pomodoro session on Jitsi.
• Webinars covering advice and shared experiences for early career research, including topics on skills and professional development, meet-the-editors/meet-the-practitioners sessions, writing in English for non-native English scholars etc.
• Mentorship program stimulating interaction between Established and Early Career HDCA scholars.
• Panel presentations and Meetup during HDCA conferences

Music by Muertito: https://www.instagram.com/muertito.music/
Production: Verity Watts of https://bettersongs.co.uk/

In episode 2, we discuss the Capability Approach and health justice with Sridhar Venkatapuram.

Sridhar discusses the philosophical implications of differing ways of seeing rights to health justice, and how the Capability Approach can help connect rights & policy. 

Sridhar has worked on health ethics for 30 years. He has won numerous awards, grants, and fellowships including Wellcome Trust Research and Senior Research Fellowships. He has been elected to prestigious professional organizations, commissions, and panels including the RSA, Faculty of Public Health, Human Development and Capability Association, and Lancet-Univ. of Oslo Panel on Global Governance for Health. Sridhar is a fellow of the HDCA.

For more information on Sridhar, and on the application of capabilities work to health justice, you can check Sridhar's book Health Justice: An Argument from the Capabilities Approach

https://www.wiley.com/en-gb/Health+Justice%3A+An+Argument+from+the+Capabilities+Approach-p-9780745650340

On Twitter, follow @Capabilityapp on Facebook, search HDCA 

If you'd like to discuss the podcast, you can mail me at [email protected] or via the HDCA.

Music is by Muertito
Produced by Verity watts 

In episode 1, we speak to Ingrid Robeyns. Ingrid has worked extensively on the Capability Approach, and is a former president of the HDCA. 

We discussed a brief history of the CA, and some of the key components of the approach. 

For more information on Ingrid, and as a good starting point for an overview of Capability Approach work, check out Ingrid's book Freedom, Wellbeing & Justice. It's open published, so is free to access;

https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0130

You can also read an overview on the Stanford Encylopedia page, last edited by Ingrid and Morten Fibieger Byskov;

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/capability-approach/

On Twitter, follow @Capabilityapp on Facebook, search HDCA 

If you'd like to discuss the podcast, you can mail me at [email protected] or via the HDCA.

Music is by Muertito
Produced by Verity watts