[Reader-list] `The Capability Approach and Grassroots Development Projects', Ingrid Robeyns, CSDS, 18 Dec

[Rajesh Ramakrishnan]

*Thursday, 18th December, 2008*


*Ingrid Robeyns* will speak on




*The Capability Approach and Grassroots Development Projects: Promises and
Limitations*



**

at *2:30 PM* in the *Seminar Room, CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi – 110 054*



The capability approach is an increasingly influential framework for
development questions. Yet its greatest impact so far has been at highly
aggregate level, such as within the United Nations' Human Development
Reports or for country-level analyses. The question addressed in this paper
is how the capability approach can be used to serve people at the level of
grassroots organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations. What are the
promises and limitations in the use of the capability approach at the
grassroots level? And how can individuals and groups who are committed to
improving the quality of life of poor and marginalised communities use the
capability approach to advance that goal? The talk will address these issues
at a general theoretical level, and illustrate some of them based on a
community-based project in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa.



Ingrid Robeyns is a philosopher and economist, and Professor in Practical
Philosophy at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. She was awarded a Ph.D. in 2003
by the Faculty of Economics and Politics, Cambridge University for her
dissertation `Gender Inequality: A Capability Perspective', guided by
Professor Amartya Sen. Her publications include (Ed. with Bina Agarwal and
Jane Humphries), *Amartya Sen's Work and Ideas: A Gender Perspective*,
London: Routledge, 2005 and (Ed. with Bina Agarwal and Jane
Humphries)*Capabilities, Freedom and Equality: Amartya Sen's Work From
a Gender
Perspective*, New Delhi: OUP, 2006. A forthcoming book is (Ed. with Harry
Brighouse) *Measuring Justice: Primary Goods and Capabilities* (Cambridge
University Press).