CHAPTER 2

The Capabilities Approach and

Implications for Social Development

Loretta Pyles

ocial development approaches, welfare capabilities (Sen, 1999). Poor and impoverished policies, and antipoverty strategies have women who are victims of violence and abuse in S often been premised on the idea that an their isolation are especially vulnerable in the increase in income or the material wealth of sense that they have less freedom and access to households is the best means to end poverty and institutions. Unfortunately, social development thus the primary goal of social development. approaches have rarely incorporated the unique Neoliberal growth-oriented strategies of capital realities of poor women into their blueprints, accumulation, privatization, and investment in particularly the special concerns of women who developing countries with cheap labor markets are victims of violence. Though the Millennium are similarly focused on materialist underpin- Development Goals of the United Nations are nings, often ignoring human well-being and appropriately concerned with and . the empowerment of women, their indicators on Many approaches to social development ignore these issues are not explicitly focused on violence the idea that how people live their lives and the against women. This is the case despite the evi- kinds of services and institutions that they have dence that violence against women and girls access to are potentially just as important as, and clearly has an adverse impact on women’s eco- tied in to, their annual income. Poor and low- nomic and overall well-being (Pyles, 2006a; income individuals are at risk and have low func- Raphael, 2000; Tolman and Rosen, 2001). tioning not just because they have no money, The capabilities perspective offers an alter- but because they may lack certain freedoms or native to development theories and policies

Pyles, L. (2008). The capabilities approach and violence against women: Implications for social development. International Social Work, 51, 25–36.

31 32——PART I. Theoretical and Methodological Issues traditionally grounded in such materialism. The Many theories of welfare hold the position capabilities approach, as articulated by Sen that positive outcomes, such as working in the (1999), Nussbaum (2000), and the United formal wage-labor sector or achieving an income Nations Development Programme (UNDP; above the poverty line, contribute to well-being. 1999), is based on the notion that human free- The capabilities approach asserts that processes dom and access to opportunities are central to and human relationships are, in and of them- social development. Given that women represent selves, valuable and also valuable insofar as they the largest number of individuals living in pov- have a positive impact on material well-being erty and that they are vulnerable to violence and outcomes. According to the capabilities approach, other inequalities that exacerbate their vulnera- equality of opportunity is what matters most for bilities, the capabilities approach offers a social well-being (Pressman and Summerfield, 2000). development framework that can incorporate Sen has focused on “what is of intrinsic value in these realities. After clarifying the capabilities life, rather than on the goods that provide instru- approach, I review the literature on the economic mental value or utility” (Pressman and Summer- aspects of violence against women. I show how field, 2000: 97). While a utilitarian measure of the capabilities approach, especially the work of human welfare would indicate that people are Nussbaum (2000), offers new insights into worse off if their standard of living is lower, the understanding both violence against women and capabilities approach shows that with greater social development. freedom and choice, welfare may increase. Poverty is viewed as a deprivation of basic liber- ties as opposed to just low income (Sen, 1999). Capabilities Approach Income is not necessarily an end in itself but a means to an end. The end is to increase the func- The 1998 Nobel prize–winning economist tioning and capabilities of people, so that an Amartya Sen (1999) argues that while provid- adequate measure of welfare ought to measure ing primary goods to a society, as proposed by these capabilities. the philosopher John Rawls, is an important The United Nations Human Development moment in economic thinking, what use one Index (HDI) is an example of a way to measure makes of these primary goods “depends cru- development not based on income alone, but cially on a number of contingent circum- incorporating other valued aspects of human life. stances, both personal and social” (1971: 70). The HDI is a “weighted average of income These circumstances, or “diversities and hetero- adjusted for distribution and purchasing geneities,” as Sen calls them, include personal power, life expectancy and literacy and educa- heterogeneities, environmental diversities, vari- tion. It is expressed in terms of deprivation from ations in social climate, differences in relational what is potentially achievable” (Pressman and perspectives, and distribution within the fam- Summerfield, 2000: 101). ily. People’s abilities to activate these primary The basic capabilities advocated for by Sen goods vary. Sen (1999: 73) thus emphasizes the (1999: 126) are “the ability to be well nourished, importance of looking into “the actual living to avoid escapable morbidity or mortality, to that people manage to achieve.” This emphasis read and write and communicate, to take part in on securing a real opportunity for every indi- the life of the community, to appear in public vidual to achieve functioning—what the per- without shame.” Nussbaum (2000), who broad- son can succeed in doing with the primary ens Sen’s capabilities, incorporating more explic- goods at one’s command—is the basis of the itly feminist concerns, articulates 10 central philosophy of the capabilities approach (Gotoh, human capabilities: life; bodily health; bodily 2001). integrity; senses, imagination, and thought; Chapter 2. The Capabilities Approach and Violence Against Women——33 emotions; practical reason; affiliation; other spe- choose to work in the formal sector (in a way that cies; play; and control over one’s environment. is safe and facilitates economic self-sufficiency) is Clearly, these perspectives reflect a different view the responsibility of society. So, under the capa- of economic development compared with the bilities approach, people should have the free- traditional goals of achieving a certain income or dom to choose and self-determine their lives. The owning property. To better grasp the idea of capabilities approach is ultimately congruent capabilities, it is important to understand the with social work perspectives on social justice, centrality of the concept of freedom. empowerment, and self-determination (Gutierrez and Lewis, 1994; Hill, 2003; Morris, 2002).

Freedom as the Means and End Violence Against Freedom, liberties, agency, and choice are cen- Women and Economics tral tenets of the capabilities approach. According to Sen (1999), there are two aspects of freedom: Violence against women affects the ability of the processes that allow freedom of actions and women to achieve full functioning in the world. I decisions; and the opportunities that people define violence against women as physical, sex- have, given their particular personal and social ual, and emotional violence against women and situations. Freedom is both the primary end and girls by intimates, acquaintances, or strangers. principal means of development. Sen also Like many researchers, I view it as a patriarchal describes this dual function as the constitutive mechanism for controlling women, defined par- role and the instrumental role, respectively. He ticularly by the use of power, force, manipula- (1999) advocates for five basic instrumental free- tion, and isolation. In this section, I will discuss doms: political freedoms (i.e., civil rights and the ways in which violence against women tends other aspects of democratic processes); eco- to affect poor adult women. First, I will explain nomic facilities (i.e., access to credit and other how violence limits women’s access to certain distributional considerations); social opportuni- institutions; then, I will discuss the effects of vio- ties (i.e., access to education and health care); lence on the physical and emotional well-being transparency guarantees (i.e., societal preven- of women; and finally, I will articulate the explicit tions of corruption and financial irresponsibil- ramifications of abuse on the economic well- ity); and protective security (i.e., a social safety being of women. net providing income supplements and unem- ployment benefits). All of these instrumental freedoms are interconnected in their ability to Violence as a Limit to Women’s help facilitate the ends of development. Access to Institutions It is critical to grasp the distinction between functioning and capabilities. A functioning is Women who have been victimized by an what people actually do, whereas a capability is intimate partner or a stranger often experience what they are able to do given the personal and fear, shame, and isolation. People who abuse social situation. If one has the capability of being women may use the tactic of isolation by delib- able to eat, one can still always choose to fast. erately isolating them from friends, family, Thus, the capability may not necessarily translate work, and social institutions. These abusers into a functioning. Women may choose to stay often perceive connections with others in the home with their children and/or do informal community as a threat to their system of power work rather than engage in the formal economic and control. Women tend to be cut off from sector. But providing them with the capability to law enforcement, courts, healthcare systems, 34——PART I. Theoretical and Methodological Issues and other sources of social support. According abuse in an intimate relationship ceased, the vic- to Sullivan (1991: 42), tim’s physical health improved. Nasir and Hyder (2003) identified among preg- It has been suggested that a critical reason nant women in developing countries as a signifi- so many women remain with or return to cant global health issue. The main risk factors in their assailants is a lack of access to com- their research were identified as belonging to a munity resources, specifically, housing, legal low-income group, little education in both part- assistance, employment, education, finances, ners, and unplanned . childcare and social support systems. Many survivors of violence must cope with memories of traumatic events, thoughts of sui- This isolation from such social support is so cide, and the effects of physical injuries. From a pervasive that the most common form of inter- study by Raphael and Tolman (1997: 10), a vention with survivors of violence is advocacy research participant describes her experience: services (Schechter, 1982). The purpose of such advocacy services is “to enhance the quality of I have trouble at work as a result of past women’s lives by improving their access to com- domestic violence. . . . I worry that I am munity resources and increasing the social sup- always missing something. I am always port available to them” (Bybee and Sullivan, watching for an attack so I am on guard all 2002: 105). Furthermore, because of the nature the time and I am not really listening. I am of the isolation associated with a problem such as always needing to ask for clarification and violence against women and the fact that it is that angers people on the job. understood as a community rather than indi- vidual problem, many communities have devel- The ongoing effects of violence—physical and oped community response teams to violence emotional—can be barriers to women’s ability to consisting of representatives of various institu- engage in the community, get vocational training tions in the community. Cheers et al. studied and education, and work in both formal and family violence in an Australian indigenous com- informal sectors. munity, and they argue for “an innovative, holis- tic and multifaceted community development response [that] addresses the economic, social Violence Affecting Women’s and structural issues relating to family violence” Ability to Generate Income (2006: 59). Economic abuse is an aspect of violence that some women report having experienced (Raphael Violence Affecting Women’s and Tolman, 1997). This kind of abuse may Health and Mental Health include behaviors such as isolating women from financial resources or preventing them from Women who have been assaulted or battered working. Many battered women do not have may be dealing with the realities of post-traumatic ready access to cash, checking accounts, or charge stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and accounts. Studies show that an abuser may other physical health problems (Plichta, 1996). directly interfere with a woman’s attempts to Tolman and Rosen (2001) found that women work or attend school by harassing her at work, who experienced domestic violence in the past disabling the family car, destroying her books or year reported three times as many mental health clothes, giving her visible wounds, or reneging on disorders as their non-abused counterparts. child-care commitments at the last minute Sullivan and Bybee (1999) found that when (Raphael and Tolman, 1997). Other research has Chapter 2. The Capabilities Approach and Violence Against Women——35 focused on how violence from an intimate partner does exist, the larger problem appears to be the affects women’s alternative resource-generating neglect of female health and nutrition. “There is strategies, including participation in the informal indeed considerable direct evidence that female and illegal economies (Pyles, 2006b). children are neglected in terms of health care, Violence appears to be a direct contributing hospitalization and even feeding” (Sen, 1999: factor to the poverty levels of women. Women 106). Sen estimates that 100 million women who have left abusive relationships may find worldwide are missing in this sense. themselves with multiple barriers to employment Closely linked to the phenomenon of missing in the formal sector, such as transportation, child women, that is, women who have died prema- care, and other ongoing safety issues (Sullivan, turely in developing countries as a result of inad- 1991). Thus, it has been reported that many equate health care and education, Sen has women stay in abusive relationships for eco- acknowledged the phenomenon of household nomic reasons (Sullivan, 1991). inequality (Sen, 1999). Household inequality is the idea that there are domestic power imbal- ances that need to be accounted for in assessing Capabilities and Women economic well-being. Because of such domestic hierarchies women do not have full access and The work on capabilities conducted by Nussbaum opportunity to achieve capabilities. In fact, (2000) expands Sen’s original ideas and repre- Iversen (2003: 97) remarks, “domestic hierarchies sents an important voice for advocating for the can deform individual preferences,” forcing capabilities of women. Many of these ideas women to adapt their preferences and make emerge from empirical evidence that exists inter- choices about their lives that they would not nationally, particularly in developing countries. make if they had true equality of opportunity. There are three additional concepts that are criti- cal for understanding the capabilities approach and how it is useful for capturing the phenome- Caring Labor non of violence against women. In this section, I will review the concepts of missing women/ Scholarly inquiry into the nature of women’s household inequality, caring labor, and bodily care work, that is, the often unpaid or underpaid integrity in more detail, as they are particularly caretaking of children, older adults, and families, important components of an expanded under- has revealed some of the complexities of this phe- standing of poverty alleviation. nomenon. Multidisciplinary thinkers have argued about the inequities that exist for women doing care work and how philosophers such as Rawls Missing Women and have ignored this aspect of women’s realities Household Inequality (Okin, 1989). More recently, UNDP has incorpo- rated the concept of “caring labor” as a critical Sen (1992, 1999) has identified the high mor- element of social development (UNDP, 1999). tality rates of women across the world, a reflec- Because women worldwide spend two-thirds tion of a capability deprivation for women. of their working hours on unpaid work and men While women in Europe and North America spend one-quarter (most unpaid work is spent on tend to outnumber men, this is not the case in caring work), women certainly have a lot to gain many developing countries. The explanation of from an increased attention given to this reality this can be discovered by looking into the experi- (UNDP, 1999). For women in abusive relation- ences of females in developing countries, espe- ships, commitments to care work may put them cially female children. While female infanticide further in harm’s way. Duties to care for children 36——PART I. Theoretical and Methodological Issues and husbands can influence the choices women of violence against women, including adverse make to report the violence they experience as effects on individual well-being and the ability of well as to stay in or leave abusive relationships. women to access social institutions, including the labor market. The capabilities approach identi- fies violence against women as a capability Bodily Integrity deprivation, arguing that social policies ought to provide social structures necessary to achieve While Sen (1999) has certainly been attuned capabilities, including bodily integrity. It is also to the unique situation of women and the necessity the case that the capabilities approach sheds an for increased attention to women’s vulnerable important light on the problem of violence position in order to enhance their capabilities, against women. Traditional interventions in vio- he has not proactively addressed the issue of lence against women, such as empowerment, violence against women. Nussbaum (2000), strengths, or medical models, have often failed to however, does take a proactive stance in her work address the deeper poverty and social develop- on capabilities and one of the critical themes ment issues that accompany violence against reflective of this is her recognition of violence women (Pyles, 2006a). against women as a capability deprivation. She The limitation of the capabilities approach is calls this capability “bodily integrity.” Nussbaum that theorists tend to overlook how to implement (2000: 78) defines the capability of bodily integ- the theory or discuss practice methods for actu- rity as being able to move freely from place to alizing its vision. Thus, it is important for schol- place; having one’s bodily boundaries treated as ars and practitioners in fields such as social work, sovereign, that is, being able to be secure against education, business, public health, and other assault, including , child sexual applied disciplines to contribute to this dialogue. abuse, and domestic violence; having opportuni- In this section, I offer suggestions for social ties for sexual satisfaction and for choice in mat- development practice as well as social research. ters of reproduction. The reason for setting forth this capability is to recognize the community’s responsibility to Social Development Practice provide the social conditions (laws, interven- tions, etc.) that enable this capability in the case It would seem that a critical question con- of women who experience lack of bodily integ- cerning the articulation of a social development rity as a capability deprivation. This is crucial, as approach is how the approach can be actualized bodily integrity is an important freedom in its in practice. Promoting instrumental freedoms is own right as well as a means to further freedoms an essential component of the development of and economic opportunities. According to the women who are vulnerable to violence. Thus, capabilities approach, the government, via its this may include addressing political freedoms, social policies, is ultimately responsible for social opportunities, and the protective security delivering “the social basis of these capabilities” of women and their families. Historically, some of (Nussbaum, 2000: 81). these activities have fallen under the purview of social workers and other social development practitioners. For example, social workers advo- Implications for Social cate for a minimum safety net of welfare and/or Development unemployment benefits. Increasing the social networks of individuals It should be clear from the above discussion that and promoting access to services are important there are complex ramifications to the problem steps in the advancement of instrumental freedoms. Chapter 2. The Capabilities Approach and Violence Against Women——37

However, these traditional social work skills must Social Development be supplemented by the skills of organizing and Research and Policy policy advocacy. While it is the case that some social workers possess such skills, social develop- More research should continue to be con- ment specialists and community organizers can ducted on the effects of violence on women’s offer their expertise in the areas of organizing and capabilities. Like the United Nations human advocacy. When communities lack such skills, it development initiatives, social researchers inves- may be necessary to partner with union organiz- tigating development practices and outcomes ers, feminist organizers, and other activists. It is may be well served to consider measuring social not necessary to reinvent the wheel of community development progress on a capabilities scale. organizing and mobilization. Established, success- Though studies have been effected that are con- ful methods are well documented in the areas of cerned with how violence affects the abilities of planning, organizing, and advocacy. Concomitant women to maintain employment and access sup- activities may include the promotion of social ports, studies could explore how violence influences capital, civic engagement, and democratic partici- women’s access to social institutions and political pation of women (Gutierrez and Lewis, 1994; participation. Studies that correlate experiences Putnam, 2000). Women’s support groups, grass- with violence and access to social institutions and roots political coalitions, and the promotion of political participation would enhance the knowl- women candidates are examples of democratizing edge base of social development specialists. In addi- activities that can enhance political freedoms and tion to qualitative and exploratory studies, research social opportunities. could be conducted utilizing secondary data analy- Access to job development, micro-loans, and sis to inquire into the association of women’s social higher education are essential strategies for and political participation (such as voter turnout developing the economic facilities for women and other forms of political participation), rates of who are surviving violence (Pyles, 2006a). violence against women, and the availability of pre- Providing supportive services for women work- vention and intervention programs. ing in both the formal and informal sectors will There is a paucity of research published in social enhance the capabilities of women, especially work journals that is concerned with the efficacy of those living with violence. These supports may community organizing strategies as well as social include child care, support groups, legal advo- development programs. Evidence-based practice cacy, and other supplements to allow them to be studies of micro-enterprise programs for battered successful in their work (Sullivan, 1991). women, job development endeavors in urban and A vital component of social development rural areas, and the effects of political participation involves not only economic and social develop- on the well-being of communities are just a few ment strategies, but also safety net assurances ideas of endeavors that could be assessed. With for the most vulnerable populations. Promoting greater knowledge of what works and what does the right to protective security measures such not work, practitioners and community members as a welfare safety net can be achieved through will be more able to actualize the ideals of the capa- policy advocacy. Additionally, practitioners can bilities approach, including the safety and eco- advocate for unemployment and disability ben- nomic well-being of female survivors of abuse. efits for women who are forced to leave their jobs due to domestic or sexual violence. Thus, References it is incumbent upon social workers and other social development practitioners to advocate Bybee, D. I. and C. M. Sullivan (2002) “The Process for such policies, emphasizing a capabilities through which an Advocacy Intervention discourse. Resulted in Positive Change for Battered Women 38——PART I. Theoretical and Methodological Issues

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