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Human Development &
Capability Association

Agency, Well-Being and Justice

Video and Webinar Archive

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The Role of Social Policy in Promoting Human Security in the MENA Region

This webinar explores the concept of human security within the MENA region. The region has long been marred by protracted conflicts that have a strong multi-dimensional nature. This requires a closer examination of the various threats to social cohesion. Human security proves to be a worthwhile construct to further explore within this context due to its ability to recognise multiple threats – whether from poverty, inequality or political marginalisation. Not only can human security be defined as a people-centred, multi-disciplinary comprehension of security, above all it seeks to advance freedom to live in dignity, freedom from fear and freedom from want/need. Freedoms which are essential to build a peaceful society. Linking human security back to its grounding in human development, allows for a further exploration as to what role social policy can play in promoting human security within the MENA region. The webinar was organised by both the HDCA Thematic Group Human Security and the MENA Social Policy Network and is part of the current GCRF-AHRC project on “Strengthening Security and Social Welfare in the MENA region”.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz5bSr2MPBk

HDCA Webinar 2021 Human Security HDCA Videos

University Students as Storytellers: Youth Voices on Social Justice

In post-1994 South Africa, history continues to disfigure the social fabric and educational landscape. Slow-paced and uneven transformation, as well as challenges of power and voice, wealth, race and gender inequalities shape the day to day reality of the country. Public universities, too, face these challenges. Yet, with over 1.2 million students, universities can foster critical ways of thinking about challenging issues, enabling us to reimagine and reinvent possibilities and to co-construct knowledge. This webinar, organized by the Participatory Methods Thematic Group, focuses on youth at one South African university as storytellers. The members of the Youth Voices team will bring different biographies and varied experiences of voice, inclusion, and marginalisation through their visual individual and collective narratives.

HDCA Webinar 2021 Participatory Methods
121 minutes

Health justice for all: A capabilities framework for health system development in the conflict-affected context of Myanmar

Speaker: Dr Sharon Bell, The Workshop, New Zealand

Conflict is a leading risk to development progress and fragile and conflict-affected contexts have high rates of poverty and limited access to crucial services such as healthcare. Myanmar is such a context, facing critical shortages in its health services leading to significant health inequities for ethnic communities. Ethnic non-state armed groups have formed regimes which seek self-determination as well as to establish alternative health systems in parallel to the state system to improve the wellbeing of their people.

This webinar considers how the capability approach can be operationalised in conflict-affected contexts to better navigate the ongoing challenge of addressing health inequalities and working towards health justice for conflict-affected communities. It draws on a qualitative case study of a partnership between an international non-governmental organisation and an ethnic non-state armed group in a health workforce training programme in Shan State, Myanmar. 

HDCA Webinar 2021 Health and Disability
53 minutes

HDCA Teacher Workshop 3 – What is the future of graduate teaching of the capabilities approach?

Presenter: Sridhar Venkatapuram, King’s College London

In this third event in our Teacher Workshop series, Sridhar Venkatapuram presents reflections and leads discussion on: What is the future of graduate teaching of the capabilities approach?

Teaching the capabilities approach to graduate students at the Master’s and PhD level requires thinking about various aspects.  In this this workshop we would like to focus on two particular aspects that seem to be relevant at this point in time.

What are the joys and challenges of teaching the capabilities approach at masters and Phd level?
What are the future prospects of better integrating the capabilities approach into graduate level curricula and doctoral research and training?

HDCA Webinar 2021
85 minutes

The use of survey data in operationalising of capability approach

Due to the multi-dimensional and fluid nature of the capabilities approach, structured, large-sample surveys are less likely to be used to evaluate the progress of individuals on various dimensions of the capability approach. But our speakers have risen up to this challenge and share their insights about the same, from different geographies. Kate Sollis from Australian National University discusses it in context of Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) data set, Darlington Mushongera, from University of Witwatersrand analyses the Guateng City Region Observatory Quality of Life Survey, South Africa and Raffaele Ciula from Sapienza University (Rome) discusses the longitudinal survey of Bolsa Familia program at Brazil.

The webinar is moderated by HDCA Fellow Professor Paul Anand, who shares his insights about a similar exercise conducted on British Household Panel Survey.

HDCA Webinar Quantitative Research Methods HDCA Videos
110 minutes

Book Launch: The Social Construction of Capabilities in a Tamil Village

by L. N. Venkataraman

Is an equitable distribution of opportunities possible within a stratified social system in which caste-based socio-economic privileges are inherited and social mobility constrained? The Social Construction of Capabilities in a Tamil Village answers this question by analysing the intersections between caste, class and education, and argues that capabilities—that is, the competence or life skills one acquires through education—are socially constructed and not an inherent trait of the individual.

The presentation by the author is followed by a Q&A with Rosie Peppin-Vaughan, Lecturer in Education and International Development at UCL Institute of Education, University College London.

HDCA Webinar 2021
72 minutes

Capability as informational basis for work and employment politics – a European research experience

In CAPRIGHT (Resources, Rights and Capabilities: In search of social foundations for Europe, (2007-2010) 24 partners from 13 European countries shared their work on capability–related concepts to inform European labour policies and work practices – understood in a wide sense and comprising services and regulation in the fields of work, employment, vocational training, work arrangements and collective action.

HDCA Webinar 2021 Work and Employment HDCA Videos
76 minutes

Using the Capability Approach to Conceptualise Wellbeing

Speaker: Ingrid Robeyns, Utrecht University

The capability approach is one of the many different frameworks that can be used to conceptualise well-being. This seminar will address the following questions: How does one use the capability approach to conceptualise wellbeing? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the capability approach to conceptualise well-being? For which purposes is this an appropriate framework, and in which contexts should one consider using another framework? What are the consequences for the deeply inter- and multidisciplinary nature of the capability approach to its conceptualisation of wellbeing? And finally, what are some points of attention to keep in mind if one wants to use this framework not just for conceptualising well-being, but also for empirical research and policy making?

HDCA Webinar 2021 HDCA Videos
90 minutes

Inclusive Data and Statistics: Human Development and Disability Indicators in Low- and Middle-income Countries

Presenter: Sophie Mitra, Fordham University

This study first examines to what extent household surveys and censuses in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) include disability questions and the types of questions under use. It then disaggregates human development indicators across disability status to assess the situation of persons and households with disabilities with 24 censuses and general household surveys from 21 LMICs. Findings have implications for data collection, research and policy.

Sophie Mitra is professor of economics and founding director of the Research Consortium on Disability at Fordham University in New York City. She has studied the economic impact of disability and mental illness, the effects of social protection programs, multidimensional poverty, the association between disability and poverty, the definition of disability. She is the author of Disability, Health and Human Development (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018).

HDCA Webinar 2021 Health and Disability HDCA Videos
56 minutes
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