Sarah C. White & Shreya Jha

Monday 5^th July 2021
10:30am – 12:00pm BST (GMT+1) / 11:30 – 13:00 (CEST/GMT +2) 

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/taking-a-relational-approach-to-multidimensional-wellbeing-tickets-160726054957 

Webinar Description: 

The Capability Approach has long taken a person-centred approach to wellbeing, emphasising what people can in practice do and be, and to some extent how they think and feel. Relational Wellbeing aligns with this, but stresses the relational character of human being, such that people’s relationships with others critically affect the opportunities they have and the choices they make. Linking personal, societal and ecological change, Relational Wellbeing looks beyond individual psychology or behaviour to the underlying conditions that promote healthy environments and happy lives. While many models of wellbeing rely on the notion of domains to represent its multidimensional character, Relational Wellbeing draws attention instead to the flows, connections and obstructions between different aspects of life, and between the diverse factors that help to generate or undermine wellbeing. 

In this seminar we will introduce the relational approach to wellbeing and describe how we are applying it in development practice. We look forward to a lively discussion concerning its similarities to and differences from the Capability Approach, and its implications for multidimensional wellbeing measurement. 

Speakers: 

Sarah White is co-founder of Relational Wellbeing (RWB) Collaborative, which links personal, societal and ecological change to develop sustainable wellbeing strategies. Her approach to wellbeing draws on thirty years’ experience of research and consultancy work on the social dimensions of global development. This includes work on gender, participation, child rights, race, religion, masculinities, and of course wellbeing, with a primary focus on Bangladesh, India and Zambia. Before founding the Collaborative in 2020, she was professor of international development and wellbeing at the University of Bath, UK. 

Shreya Jha is co-founder of the Relational Wellbeing Collaborative which works on promoting sustainable wellbeing through strategies for systemic change. Shreya’s thinking on wellbeing builds on a foundational training in inclusive mental health and has evolved through 20 years of programmatic interventions and research on wellbeing, mental health, disability, gender, children’s lives, and poverty and disaster reconstruction. Since 2009 she has been working with Sarah on developing the relational approach to wellbeing through research primarily in India and Zambia.