Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice The Capability Approach Re-Examined Acknowledgments

In 1998 , when I started to work on my dissertation at Cambridge University on the capability approach and gender inequality , there were very few scholars working on the capability approach . I recall searching on the internet for publications on the topic , not receiving more than a few hundred hits ( rather than the , roughly , hits one gets today ) I had studied economics and additional courses in social and political sciences and gender studies , and I had a strong intuition that , for the study of gender inequalities , the capability approach was a much more suitable framework than the prevailing ways in which economists as well as political theorists analysed unjustified gender inequalities . I was extremely lucky that Sen had agreed to supervise my doctoral studies . He not only opened a world that was new for me ( being the first in my family to study for a and the first to study abroad ) but also taught me not to be afraid of developing myself as an scholar . And , importantly , he very patiently helped me to grasp the capability approach in all its details . The privilege of having Sen as my supervisor meant that I had the best possible access to the scholar who had developed the capability approach as it emerged at the end of the twentieth century . When I graduated from Cambridge University , I asked whether he was planning to write another book on the capability approach , such as his classic Commodities and ties . He smiled , shook his head and responded No , it has grown over my head . His judgement was probably very accurate in essence the problem of a literature becoming unwieldy and that challenge only became much worse over the next two decades . One way to read this book is to see it as an attempt to tame the proliferation of scholarship about the capability approach since the turn of the last century .

, Freedom and Social Over the last fifteen years , I have published quite a number of articles , book chapters and online pieces on the capability approach , including many that had as their main aim to clarify or explain certain aspects of it . But I kept receiving many emails from students who had questions about the capability approach . Their emails , as well as conversations with scholars sceptical of the importance of this approach , made it clear that a general introduction was necessary to answer as many of these questions as possible . I decided to write an introductory overview of the capability approach , in which the aim was not to develop my own , novel version of a capability theory , but rather to try to present a general helicopter view of the approach . In addition , I felt that too many claims about or critiques of the capability approach that were circulating were based either on some scholar own interest in seeing the approach develop exclusively in a certain direction , or else were based on misunderstandings , often due to miscommunication between different disciplines . The result lies in front of you . Unfortunately , it took me much longer to write this than I had originally planned almost twelve years lie between the initial idea and its completion . Yet in hindsight , despite that at many points the ambition of writing this book felt like a heavy psychological burden , I have no regrets that I only now completing it . Only in the last year , after the publication of an article in the of Human Development and Capabilities in which I offered a general definition of the capability approach ( did it became clear to me exactly what the general anatomy of the approach looked like . Thanks to discussions with students and other scholars , the of the capability approach that emerged from that journal article was further crystallised and polished . That is the heart of this book , and it is presented in chapter . In addition , I also provide What one could see as an . guide to the capability literature the most frequently voiced questions and criticisms will be clarified and discussed in chapters and . Over the many years of developing my own understanding of the capability approach , I have learnt a lot from other scholars as Well as from those whom I taught . Intellectually , my biggest debt is no doubt to Sen , who had the single most important on my intellectual development . I also learnt a lot from conversations on

the capability approach with people working in different disciplines and in different corners of the world . I can not possibly list everyone who contributed to my understanding and thinking , yet I would like to express my gratitude to Agarwal , Sabina , Binder , Harry , Morten , Ina , Andrew , David Crocker , Jay , Des Casper , Pablo , Reiko , den , Martin van , Jane Humphries , Sem de , Martha , Roland , Erik , Elaine , Robert van der Veen , Polly , Melanie Walker , Tom Wells , Jonathan , as well as my late friend and . I also benefited a lot from teaching the capability approach to hundreds of students , but in particular during a course at the University of the Western Cape , Cape Town , in 2011 during a workshop at University in Tokyo in March 2016 during a at the London School of Economics in which I worked on a draft of this book manuscript in February 2017 and during a Research Master tutorial in practical philosophy at University during the academic year . I benefited from the comments I received at two book manuscript workshops that were held over the last year , one at the Erasmus University organised by Binder and Sem de , and the other as a session at the 2017 Human Capability Association ( conference in Cape Town , organised by Morten and Rebecca . I benefited from the comments I received at those occasions from Morten , van der , Monique , Caroline and Miriam in , and from Ibrahim , Serene and Henry in Cape Town . In addition , I also received comments on parts of the draft manuscript from Conrad , Chris Lyon , Bart , Raphael , Petra van der , Roland and Polly Vizard . I owe special thanks to Binder , Morten , Sem de and Henry , whose comments led to multiple substantive changes . Thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers who

, Freedom and Social reviewed the book proposal in 2011 and especially to Tania , who reviewed the final manuscript and provided very valuable suggestions for final revisions . My thanks are also due to Robert van der Veen , for his permission to draw on our joint work in section . I would furthermore like to acknowledge generous research funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research ( who awarded me three grants over the last 15 years that allowed me to further develop my research on the capability approach a postdoctoral scholarship ( to work on the capability approach and theories of justice a grant ( to work on demographic changes and social justice using the capability approach as one of the normative tools and finally the Horizon grant ( awarded to a consortium of scholars from three universities and led by Marcus , for an analysis of practical . Thanks also to the team at Open Book Publishers in particular Lucy Barnes , Bianca , Alice Meyer , and who have been a real pleasure to work with . This book is dedicated to my family to my husband Roland and our children and . This book contains not only almost half a million characters typed and retyped by me , but also visible and less visible contributions from my three ( little ) men . Obviously , as a fellow political philosopher with leanings , there are insights from Roland in various places in this book , including some direct citations . Moreover , Roland helped me not to let the best be the enemy of the good , and kept encouraging me to finish this book . If I waited until I was happy with each sentence and paragraph , this book probably would never see the light of day . contribution may be the least visible , yet it is there . It is his unconventional View of human affairs that keeps prompting me not to accept norms or practices that are unjust or make no sense . provided the artwork for the cover . The woven piece very well represents the nature of the capability approach , as well as the fact that life is made up by one own choice of , which follows a dynamic and always unfinished pattern . If one has enough bright and colourful , they can be woven together to become something bigger than the mere taken separately a life worth living .