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Human Development &
Capability Association

Agency, Well-Being and Justice

Video and Webinar Archive

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Education, Capabilities and Sustainable Development

Presenter: Caroline Hart
Chair: Andrew Crabtree

Educational institutions and their processes have the potential to make a significant contribution towards the development of individual capabilities and sustainable development more broadly. Albeit the latter will be diversely conceived, this potential exists, though cannot be assumed due to positive and negative impacts of educational processes, trade-offs and sacrifices along the way (Hart, 2018). 

HDCA Webinar Education Sustainable Human Development European Network HDCA Videos
56 minutes

Sen’s Broad Consequentialism, Legitimate Freedoms and Biodiversity Loss

Speaker: Andrew Crabtree

Amartya Sen has been unjustly criticized for having an apparently lassiez faire approach to freedoms. For some, he appears to place no limits on the freedoms people may have. Such a criticism fails to take Sen’s work on consequentialism – his so-called broad consequentialism – into consideration. Nor too does it discuss his work on responsibility. Thus, the first part of this paper outlines Sen’s “broad consequentialism”, which takes agency, processes and social relationships of people into consideration, and contrasts it and its benefits, with traditional consequentialism. This section also criticizes Sen’s approach for being unclear in terms of prioritization, especially in relation to rights which is left to a vague discussion of public reasoning (Sen, 2008). Section 2 begins by outlining a legitimate freedom or critical contractualist approach to the limits of freedoms is defended which, drawing on Scanlon (1998) and Forst (2011), emphasises the importance of justification to others. It defends the approach against Sen’s criticisms of Scanlon which, I shall maintain involves a misunderstanding of Scanlon’s work as providing a unique set of principles for all cases (Sen, 2008).

HDCA Webinar European Network
55 minutes

A conceptual review of the narrative on sustainability from the perspective of the capability approach

Speaker: Philippa Shepherd, a doctoral student at Université Grenoble Alpes, France, is doing research on the vulnerability and resilience of work capability in the French Alps amidst the challenges of climate change.

Many scholars have explored, critiqued, and developed upon the integration of the notion of sustainability within capability theory. Being human-centred, the capability approach emphasises human flourishing, dignity, equity, and justice issues with regard to sustainability, bringing to the fore the human in sustainable human development. However, scholars have highlighted theoretical discord between the two development paradigms, drawing attention to the underlying individualism of the capability approach and the understated role of the environment and nature in generating and safeguarding people’s capabilities. The sustainability-capability narrative has thus resulted in expansions of capability theory making explicit the environmental dimension and the notion of collective capability. In this presentation, Philippa explores some seminal papers illustrating the conceptual compatibility (or not) between sustainable development and the capability approach. 

HDCA Webinar European Network HDCA Videos
54 minutes

Racism and Ill-Being

In this webinar, Professor Crain Soudien, Emeritus Professor at the University of Cape Town and a long-standing researcher in the field of racism and education takes us through some of the conceptual issues in thinking about racism. Following his presentation, are reflections from Mikateko Mathebula, Faith Mkwananzi, Oliver Mutanga, Daizy Nalwamba, and Melanie Walker. Their insights will contribute to our understanding of the complex ways in which systemic racism influences our work.

HDCA Webinar 2023 HDCA Videos
103 minutes

Engaging with decolonisation to value Indigenous people’s self-determination as a key human capability: Some reflections

Presenter: Dr. Vinathe Sharma-Brymer, Lecturer in Social Work
University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia

Brief Bio: Vinathe Sharma-Brymer is a lecturer in Social Work at University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. She is an interdisciplinary academic researcher applying cross-continental approaches and perspectives in her qualitative research on human development. Her current academic research is on the benefits of nature-relatedness for better human health and wellbeing. Vinathe also focuses on working with individual (human) agency while engaging with intersecting issues in the experiences of equality and equity to enjoy the quality of life. This focus broadens her personal and professional engagement to examine decolonisation and self-determination using a migrant’s lens to explore the impact of colonisation on the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia.

HDCA Webinar Indigenous Peoples Asia-Pacific Region Network HDCA Videos

Improving how we understand and measure sexual wellbeing to capture human flourishing and social justice

Presentation by Dr Karen Lorimer
Co-Coordinator, HDCA Thematic Group on Gender and Sexuality

Dr Karen Lorimer (BA (Hons), MPhil, PhD, PGCAP, FHEA) is a Reader in Social Science and Health, in the School of Health & Life Sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland. She is a sociologist, interested in sexual health, sexual wellbeing, capability approach and gender-based violence. She currently leads a British Academy/Leverhulme project on working class women and sexual violence.

Karen is an active member of the Gender Research and Equalities Network at GCU. She is a member of the Scottish Parliament Cross-Party Group on Sexual Health and Blood Borne Viruses, and is a member of the Scottish Government’s National Monitoring and Research Group (NMRG).

HDCA Webinar 2023 Gender and Sexuality Health and Disability HDCA Videos
38 minutes

Engaging Communities in Case-Study Research to Transform Institutions––and How Spiritual Capabilities can Contribute

The Human Rights Thematic Group hosts a presentation by TG member Bill Walker, Ridley College, Melbourne, who picks up from Dustin Sharp’s recent talk to the HDCA Human Rights Thematic Group introducing the concept of a “larger we” (https://hd-ca.org/videos/a-larger-we-spirituality-identity-human-rights-and-social-change). In this presentation he describes his own spiritual journey of engaging with injustice through advocacy and other action for, with, and by communities. 

HDCA Webinar 2023 Human Rights HDCA Videos
95 minutes

A Larger We: Spirituality, Identity, Human Rights, and Social Change

Dustin Sharp, Associate Professor at the Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego.  

Dustin Sharp formerly served as researcher for Francophone West Africa at Human Rights Watch. He has published with Human Rights Quarterly and the Journal of Human Rights. He is the author of Rethinking Transitional Justice for the 21st Century: Beyond the End of History (CUP 2018).

HDCA Webinar 2022 Human Rights
59 minutes
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