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Working papers

 

WeD is making available a series of on-line working papers to illustrate the fundamental strategies behind the research programme. Print versions are available by contacting [email protected]

WeD42 The Role of Markets in the Construction of Wellbeing: The need for a Polanyian Perspective Susan Johnson
WeD41

Connecting Wellbeing in North and South: Negotiating Meanings in Transnational Migration
(available soon)

Katie Wright and Allister McGregor
WeD40 Does Mixed Methods Research Matter to Understanding Childhood Well-Being? Nicola Jones and Andy Sumner
WeD39 Health and Subjective Wellbeing in developing Countries: The case of Algeria Habib Tiliouine
WeD38 Subjective Well-being in Cities: A Cross- Cultural Analysis in Bogotá, Belo Horizonte and Toronto Eduardo Wills, Gazi Islam and Marilyn Hamilton
WeD37 Enhancing Poverty Abatement Programs: A subjective wellbeing contribution Mariano Rojas
WeD36 Governance, Democracy and the Politics of Wellbeing Joe Devine
WeD35 An Analysis Of The Multiple Links Between Economic And Subjective Wellbeing Indicators Using Data From Peru
James Copestake, Monica Guillen Royo,
Wan-Jung Chou, Tim Hinks, Jackeline Velazco
WeD34 Well-Being is a Process of Becoming: Research with Organic Farmers in Madagascar Cathy Rozel Farnworth
WeD 33 “You are not going there to amuse yourself,”
Barriers to Achieving Wellbeing Through
International Migration: The Case of Peruvian
Migrants in London and Madrid

Katie Wright-Revolledo
WeD 32
Reproducing Unequal Security:
Peru as a Wellbeing Regime
James Copestake and Geof Wood
WeD 31 Clashing Values In Bangladesh: NGOs, Secularism And The Ummah Geof Wood
WeD 30 Structure, Regimes and Wellbeing Julie Newton
WeD 29 Labels, Welfare Regimes And Intermediation: Contesting Formal Power Geof Wood
WeD 28 Asking People What They Want or Telling Them What They ‘Need’? Contrasting A Theory of Human Need With Local Expressions Of Goals
Tom Lavers
WeD 27 Conducting Focus Group Research Across Cultures: Consistency And Comparability

Janet Mancini Bilson
WeD 26 The Why And How Of Understanding ‘Subjective’ Wellbeing: Exploratory Work By The WeD Group In Four Developing Countries Laura Camfield
WeD25 Researching Wellbeing Across the Disciplines: Some Key Intellectual Problems and Ways Forward Philippa Bevan
WeD24 Poverty and Exclusion, Resources and Relationships: Theorising the Links Between Economic and Social Development James Copestake
WeD23 Wellbeing, Livelihoods and Resources in Social Practice Sarah White and Mark Ellison
WeD22 Using Security to Indicate Wellbeing Geof Wood
WeD21 Multiple Dimensions Of Social Assistance: The Case Of Peru’s ‘Glass Of Milk’ Programme
James Copestake
WeD20 Researching Wellbeing: From Concepts to Methodology J. Allister McGregor
WeD19 Wellbeing in Developing Countries:
Conceptual Foundations of the WeD Programme

Ian Gough, J. Allister McGregor and Laura Camfield
WeD18 Public Goods, Global Public Goods and the Common Good Séverine Deneulin and Nicholas Townsend
WeD17 Measuring Wealth Across Seven Thai Communities Richard Clarke
WeD16 Exploring the Relationship Between Happiness, Objective and Subjective Wellbeing: Evidence From Rural Thailand Mònica Guillén Royo and Jackeline Velazco
WeD15 The Cultural Construction of Wellbeing:
Seeking Healing in Bangladesh

Sarah C White
WeD14 Relationships, Happiness and Wellbeing: Insights from Bangladesh Laura Camfield, Kaneta Choudhury, and Joe Devine
WeD13 Autonomy or Dependence - or Both?
Perspectives from Bangladesh

Joe Devine, Laura Camfield, and Ian Gough
WeD12 Sen and the Art of Quality of Life Maintenence: Towards a Working Definition of Quality of Life. Danny Ruta, Laura Camfield, Cam Donaldson
WeD11 Exploring the Quality of Life of People in North Eastern and Southern Thailand Darunee Jongudomkarn and Laura Camfield
WeD10 Happiness and the Sad Topics of Anthropology Neil Thin
WeD09

Subjective and Objective Well-Being
in Relation to Economic Inputs:
Puzzles and Responses

Des Gasper
WeD08

Participatory Approaches and the
Measurement of Human Well-being

Sarah White and Jethro Pettit
WeD07

Administative Allocation, Lease Markets and Inequality in Land in Rural Ethiopia: 1995-97

Bereket Kebede
WeD06

Exploring the Structured Dynamics of Chronic Poverty: A Sociological Approach

Pip Bevan
WeD05 Poverty Studies in Peru: Towards a More Inclusive Study of Exclusion

Teofilo Altamirano, James Copestake,
Adolfo Figueroa and Katie Wright

WeD04 Discursive Repertoires and the Negotiation of Well-being: Reflections on the WeD Frameworks Hartley Dean
WeD03 Theorising the Links between Social and Economic Development: the Sigma Economy Model of Adolfo Figueroa
James Copestake
WeD02 Research on Well-Being: Some Advice from Jeremy Bentham
David Collard
WeD01 Lists and Thresholds: Comparing Our Theory of Human Need with Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach
Ian Gough

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Author Title No Date
Ian Gough Lists and Thresholds: Comparing Our Theory of Human Need with Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach (.pdf)
Presented at the Conference Promoting Women's Capabilities: Examining Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach, at St Edmund's College, Cambridge
WeD01 March 2003
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
This paper compares two recent books addressing issues in human wellbeing, rights and development: A Theory of Human Need by Doyal and Gough and Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach by Martha Nussbaum. The first part identifies the common project which underlies both works: to clarify and defend those universal human interests which underpin an emancipatory and effective political programme for all women and men. The next two sections set out in some detail the different approaches in terms of needs and capabilities respectively, the taxonomies of each and the thinking behind them. In the fourth section, the two approaches are compared in terms of their components, derivation and thresholds, and some preliminary evaluations are offered. The paper concludes that the hierarchical approach of the Doyal-Gough theory can mediate between Nussbaum’s ‘thick’ and Amartya Sen’s ‘thin’ approach to capabilities and wellbeing.

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Author Title No Date
David Collard Research on Well-Being: Some Advice from Jeremy Bentham (.pdf)
WeD02 April 2003
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
Jeremy Bentham was the most illustrious of the utilitarians. This paper shows how his ideas on the measurement of happiness are of relevance to modern research on well-being.

Jeremy Bentham provided a comprehensive list of the sources of pleasure and pain, rather in the manner of modern writers on well-being such as Nussbaum. He explicitly used the term well-being and in the course of extensive discussions he covered many of the issues of concern to modern researchers. In particular he stressed the social and other-regarding aspects of well-being and emphasised the importance of “ill-being”. Bentham insisted that the measurement of well-being should be firmly based on the concerns and subjective valuations of those directly concerned. Those who wished to superimpose other judgements were dismissed as “ipsedixitists”. The paper considers what, if anything, the modern researcher can learn from Bentham.

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Author Title No Date
James Copestake Theorising the Links between Social and Economic Development: the Sigma Economy Model of Adolfo Figueroa (.pdf) WeD03 September 2003
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
The sigma economy model of Adolfo Figueroa explains how labour market segmentation and inequality is perpetuated through exclusion in the provision of formal education, financial services and social protection. This article highlights the originality of the sigma model by contrasting it with dual economy models in the tradition of Arthur Lewis, which assume eventual labour market integration. The sigma model is consistent with methodological individualism, but also provides a strong framework for integrated analysis of social and economic dimensions of development.

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Author Title No Date
Hartley Dean Discursive Repertoires and the Negotiation of Well-being: Reflections on the WeD Frameworks (.pdf) WeD04 September 2003
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
This paper:
· Links the three main WeD frameworks - the resource profiles, human needs and quality of life approaches - by focusing on the ‘discursive repertoires’ through which the different meanings of human well-being are commonly talked about and understood.
· Defines such repertoires in relation to the overlap between two kinds of everyday conceptual distinction: that between local and universal perspectives on the world; and that between 'solidaristic' and 'contractarian' understandings of the relationship between the human individual and society (the former assumes humankind to be fundamentally co-operative, the latter assumes it to be competitive).
· Explores the competing repertoires through which people negotiate with each other and come to understand their practical survival strategies, the naming and claiming of their needs, and their personal identity as embodied beings.
· Discusses the methodological implications and the theoretical relevance for the understanding of welfare regimes in developing countries.

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Authors Title No Date
* Poverty Studies in Peru:
Towards a More Inclusive Study of Exclusion (.pdf)
WeD05 December 2003

*Teofilo Altamirano, James Copestake, Adolfo Figueroa and Katie Wright

Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
This paper presents an overview of published literature on poverty and related concepts in Peru. Its purpose is to contribute to a universal and interdisciplinary understanding of poverty, while at the same time giving due weight to discipline-specific and local understandings. Following an introduction exploring these issues, the next three sections review the differing understandings of poverty offered by economics, anthropology and sociology. The scope of empirical economic analysis has broadened in its analysis of the multiple dimensions of poverty, but remains weak in explaining reasons for the persistence of poverty. The anthropological perspective offers a rich account of local understandings of poverty and has an important role to play in strengthening the voice of poor people themselves in research and policy processes. Sociological perspectives have highlighted the tension between a deterministic explanation of the persistence of poverty and research into how poverty can be influenced by individual and collective action.

The last section proposes that these three perspectives can be incorporated into a single framework centred on the concepts of inclusion and exclusion. Peru is conceived of as a sigma society characterised by a profound initial inequality in social assets. The self-interested actions of the main domestic actors prevent block significant reforms, and the capacity of external development agencies to break the impasse can be counterproductive due to the sensitivity of the cultural and political issues involved. In contrast to the ‘tragic optimism’ of Sender, this theory of social exclusion can be summed up as ‘constructive pessimism’.

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Author Title No Date
Philippa Bevan Exploring the Structured Dynamics of Chronic Poverty: A Sociological Approach WeD06 May 2004
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
The dominant forms of international poverty research involve statistical analyses of household surveys and 'qualitative' information produced using 'participatory' techniques. The expertises of other social scientists are rarely used to inform development policy. The paper critiques the muddled conceptualisations of 'chronic poverty' in the World Development Special Issue on Chronic Poverty, and outlines a Dynamic Actor/Structure framework for analysing poverty processes based on human and social ontologies, which are clearly spelled out. The framework combines three structural levels, actor, lifeworld, and 'big structure', with the different conceptualisations of time implicit in the concepts of calendars and clocks, rhythms and histories, and is used to analyse and understand four episodes of chronic poverty in Brazil, Sierra Leone and Haiti. The sociological analysis of these anthropological studies reveals some of the complex structures and processes involved in the generation of poverty. A cross-disciplinary approach to poverty research would result in more realistic development policies and practices.

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Author Title No Date
Bereket Kebede Administative Allocation, Lease Markets and Inequality in Land in Rural Ethiopia: 1995-97 WeD07 July 2004
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
Access to farmland is an important factor affecting the well-being of a population in an agricultural country. This paper concentrates on issues of allocation and distribution of land in a predominantly agricultural country, Ethiopia. The reform of 1975 was a major programme that transformed not only the land tenure in Ethiopia but also the political and administrative structure of rural areas. This paper looks at some empirical results and studies in economic history that show important continuities in the land holding system.

A highly equitable land holding system is usually assumed to exist in rural Ethiopia due to the continual distribution and re-distributions of land after the reform. But the paper presents empirical results that show both inter-regional (between villages) and intra-regional (within village) inequalities in land holding are high - compared to some African countries. The reform nationalised all rural land and set-up Peasant Associations (PAs) that effectively function as local governments as well as distribute land on usufruct basis. Since a PA has responsibility of distributing land only to its members, the reform has created an institutional barrier that may have increased inter-regional inequality by discouraging rural-rural migration from densely to sparsely populated areas.

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Author Title No Date
Sarah White and Jethro Pettit Participatory Approaches and the
Measurement of Human Well-being
WeD08 August 2004
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
This paper considers the use of participatory methods in international development research, and asks what contribution these can make to the definition and measurement of well-being. It draws on general lessons arising from the project level, two larger?scale policy research processes sponsored by the World Bank, and the experience of quality of life studies. It also considers emerging experiments with using participatory methods to generate quantitative data. The paper closes by assessing the future trajectory of participatory approaches in well-being research, and reflects on some dilemmas regarding the use of participatory data on well-being in the policymaking process.

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Author Title No Date
Des Gasper Subjective and Objective Well-Being in Relation to Economic Inputs: Puzzles and Responses WeD09 October 2004
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
Well-being is an umbrella concept that embraces both subjective well-being (SWB) and objective well-being (OWB). This paper confronts the problem that income, the measure that economists largely concentrate on, is not satisfactorily correlated with either. Furthermore, OWB is not closely related to SWB. So all three concepts are identifying different underlying realities and need different measures. The paper goes on to identify and discuss possible responses to these discrepancies. One is to re-specify how income, SWB or OWB are measured. Another is to ignore the discrepancies and continue to focus on measures of income or opulence. A further possible response is to replace or subsume the concepts under other ones, for example by claiming that all that matters is choice: having a choice, having more choice, getting one's choice. The paper rejects ignoring or replacing the discrepant concepts, and argues that we must respect and seek to understand the causal factors that explain the various - sometimes competitive - relations between growing economic inputs and OWB and SWB, and to face the issues involved. Furthermore, we should clarify the choices involved in giving priority to either subjective or objective well-being, for particular purposes in particular cases. To understand well-being and human development these various theoretical issues must be confronted.

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Author Title No Date
Neil Thin Happiness and the Sad Topics of Anthropology WeD10 May 2005
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
This paper proposes a new set of engagements between anthropology and other disciplines towards the interpretation, empirical research, and promotion of happiness. It argues that the cross-cultural study of happiness (concepts, aspirations, approaches and achievements) is deeply embedded in the traditions from which social anthropology arose, but that happiness as an explicit topic has been dramatically silenced in anthropology. Key reasons for that silencing are: relativist/adaptivist bias (anti-evaluative, or naïvely/ romantically positive representation of non-western culture); pathological/ clinical bias (focusing on suffering, ill-being, and adverse emotions); cognitivist/social constructionist bias (ignoring or sneering at evolutionary psychology, rejecting the role of emotions and experiences in social analysis); anti-utilitarian/anti-hedonistic (rejecting utilitarian motives and explanations, focusing on means not ends, doubting the moral value of pleasure). After reviewing some anthropological writing on happiness, I set out a provisional agenda for more explicit empirical cross-cultural qualitative research and analysis of happiness particularly with a view to offsetting current weaknesses in psychologists’ and economists’ happiness research, which tends to be ethnocentric, measurement-obsessed, and - most paradoxically - pathological. There are promising potential markets for happiness anthropology as a source of empirical information and theoretical guidance for social policy, evaluation studies, psychological therapy and, for the vast numbers of mass market, self-help publications.

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Author Title No Date
Darunee Jongudomkarn and Laura Camfield Exploring the Quality of Life of People in North Eastern and Southern Thailand WeD11 August 2005
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
The assumption that development brings not only material prosperity but also a better quality of life lies at the heart of the development project. However, it is rarely supported by data on the subjective Quality of life (QoL) of people living in developing countries, and even more rarely by data collected with locally appropriate methods, grounded in an emic definition of QoL. The initial, exploratory phase of WeD’s QoL research aimed to develop a grounded definition of QoL and establish the most appropriate methods for understanding and measuring it. The paper presents findings from five rural and peri-urban sites in Southern and North-eastern Thailand.

Participants in the exploratory research in Thailand identified 26 aspects to their QoL, the most important of which were family relations, health, money, occupation, and housing. Family Relationships was the most important area for all groups and comprised following social norms, engaging in reciprocal relationships of caring and support, and meeting your family’s needs. People were also concerned about their Health, largely due to the inconvenience and cost of illness, and aware of the psychological impact of other areas of their lives (for example, choice of Occupation). Money was linked explicitly to being able to experience the good life, and lack of it was a problem for all age groups. However, although everyone wanted to own their own House, only people in peri-urban areas were concerned about its appearance and size.

This information on the goals, resources, and values of people living in North-eastern and Southern Thailand, combined with findings from Peru, Ethiopia and Bangladesh, will be used to develop a measure to assess the QoL of people living in developing countries.

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Authors Title No Date
Danny Ruta, Laura Camfield, Cam Donaldson Sen and the Art of Quality of Life Maintenence: Towards a Working Definition of Quality of Life. WeD12 January 2006
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
The capability approach advocated by Amartya Sen provides a new
philosophical framework for social policy. It also permits re-appraisal of a
central concept in health and social care, and more recently international
development – ‘quality of life’. This paper begins by comparing Sen’s
capability view of quality of life with current views predominant in health
care, and re-defines quality of life as ‘the gap between desired and actual
capabilities’. A causal pathway linking resources such as income, to
capabilities (including health), and finally to quality of life, is postulated. The
notion of ‘cognitive homeostasis’ is introduced to explain how a curvilinear
relationship is observed between resources, capabilities, and quality of life.
A separate set of factors (eg: spirituality, loss of a partner, chronic pain) is
identified that act to sustain or destabilise the cognitive homeostatic
mechanism. The paper concludes by examining some of the implications of
this final causal model for social justice and policy evaluation.

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Authors Title No Date
Joe Devine, Laura Camfield, Ian Gough Autonomy or Dependence - or Both?
Perspectives from Bangladesh
WeD13 January 2006
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
The idea of personal autonomy is central to many accounts of eudaimonic well-being. Yet it is often criticised as a Western concept celebrating individualism and independence over group obligations and interdependence or dependence. This paper rejects this view and argues that coherent accounts of autonomy must always recognize the interdependence of people in groups, and that autonomy can coexist with substantial relationships of dependence. It illustrates this drawing on evidence from Bangladesh, a poor country usually absent from cross-cultural studies and one where personal relationships of hierarchy and dependence are endemic. Argument and evidence is presented showing the coexistence of personal autonomy and dependence, and the relationship between collective action and autonomy. We also address some of the specific problems encountered in researching autonomy in a social context where it is mainly expressed in relational forms. We conclude that autonomy can be directed toward both personal and social goals, and can be enacted individually, or by participation in groups. Autonomy is a universal psychological need but its expression is always contextual.

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Authors Title No Date
Laura Camfield, Kaneta Choudhury and Joe Devine Relationships, Happiness and Wellbeing: Insights from Bangladesh WeD14 March 2006
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
Although Bangladesh is known as one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world, its people seem to enjoy levels of happiness that are higher than those found in many other countries. This includes ‘developed’ countries where people have larger per capita incomes and can access a wider range of public services and goods. The paper explores this apparent paradox by analysing primary quantitative and qualitative data, and engaging with existing literature on happiness and objective wellbeing in Bangladesh. The data and analysis presented here contributes to the limited knowledge we have of the construction and experience of happiness and life satisfaction in contexts of extreme and persistent economic poverty. It identifies and offers insights into the ‘personal’ as well as social or ‘relational’ values and goals that people in Bangladesh consider important to achieve happiness in life. This, we argue, leads to a better understanding of the role of social and cultural context in the construction of people’s happiness. In the conclusion, we reflect on the policy implications of our findings.

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Authors Title No Date
Sarah C White The Cultural Construction of Wellbeing: Seeking Healing in Bangladesh
WeD15 March 2006
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
The aim of this paper is to explore the ‘cultural construction of wellbeing’, and question the dominant ways that culture has figured in discussion of wellbeing and development. The approach to culture is informed by perspectives from social anthropology, particularly as these relate to three main wellbeing themes: values, goals and ideals; welfare and standards of living; subjective perceptions and experience. Where much discussion of wellbeing has been normative and generalised, the analysis here is grounded in a practical situation: an extremely poor family in rural Bangladesh, faced with multiple challenges to health and well-being, and the diverse ways they sought medical care across the public and private sectors. These show the falsity of any notion of a hermetically sealed, uncontested 'traditional culture', and the inadequacy of any simple mapping of culture onto social group or nation-state. In place of the dominant understandings of culture as a ‘lens’, the paper suggests that the cultural construction of wellbeing should be considered a form of work. This restores the subject to the subjective, and shows people as agents of culture, constructing wellbeing in at once material and symbolic ways. The cultural construction of wellbeing thus appears as a contested process, and an always unstable and composite outcome, constituted through the work of human subjects operating at the interstices of social structure, institutional culture and political economy.

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Authors Title No Date
Mònica Guillén Royo and Jackeline Velazco Exploring the Relationship Between Happiness, Objective and Subjective Wellbeing: Evidence From Rural Thailand
WeD16 March 2006
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
This paper approaches well-being following the tradition of happiness in
economics, where happiness and satisfaction are taken as proxies for
subjective well-being. It also relates indicators of basic needs (Doyal and
Gough, 1991) with happiness and domains satisfaction contributing to the
reconciliation of the subjective and objective approaches to well-being.
The study draws on Thai data collected in rural communities through the
Resources and Needs Questionnaire. Objective indicators of basic need
satisfaction such as food shortages, chronic ill health and wealth are shown
to have a significant impact on household happiness and domain
satisfaction in Thailand. Perceptions of the economic position of the
household in comparison with the rest of the community emerge as a key
determinant of happiness and domain satisfaction. The analysis undertaken
in the paper opens up the field for a further exploration of the relationship
between basic needs indicators and self-reported happiness and
satisfaction in poor rural communities.


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Authors Title No Date
Richard Clarke Measuring Wealth Across Seven Thai Communities
WeD17 April 2006
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
This paper discusses the methodology for creating an asset-based wealth
index from household survey data. It critically reviews the main approaches
used to create such indexes, showing that the aims of the study and types
of data available are key factors in influencing the research design. It then
outlines the methodology undertaken to create a wealth index to
differentiate between households in the seven communities from the
Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) project in Thailand, and to
validate it through further fieldwork in each community. The findings of the
index suggest that households in the South of Thailand are generally richer
than those in the North-East, and that wealth tends to be higher in urban
areas compared to rural areas. Discussions to validate the index highlight
the importance of combining qualitative fieldwork with quantitative analysis
of household surveys to understand the local context of wealth, and
appreciate the needs of households, and their different resources,
livelihoods, relationships and life-cycles.

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Authors Title No Date
Séverine Deneulin and Nicholas Townsend Public Goods, Global Public Goods and the Common Good
WeD18 September 2006
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
Public economics has recently introduced the concept of global public
goods as a new category of public goods whose provision is central for
promoting the well-being of individuals in today's globalized world. This
paper examines the extent to which introducing this new concept in
international development is helpful for understanding human well-being
enhancement. It argues that the concept of global public goods could be
more effective if the conception of well-being it assumes is broadened
beyond the individual level. 'Living well' or the 'good life' does not dwell in
individual lives only, but also in the lives of communities which human
beings form. A successful provision of global public goods depends on this
recognition that the 'good life' of the communities that people form is a
constitutive component of the 'good life' of individual human beings. The
paper considers some implications of the concept of the common good for
international development, and suggests that the rediscovery of this
concept, and identification of how to nurture the common good, constitute
one of the major tasks for development theory and policy.


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Authors Title No Date
Ian Gough, J. Allister McGregor and Laura Camfield Wellbeing in Developing Countries:
Conceptual Foundations of the WeD Programme

WeD19 September 2006
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
The research programme of the ESRC Research group on Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) at the University of Bath was founded on three conceptual frameworks: Human Need Theory, the Resource Profiles Framework, and Quality of Life Research. This paper provides a detailed conceptual overview of each of these in sections 2, 3 and 4. The introduction seeks to justify a wellbeing/ illbeing approach to the traditional concerns of poverty in developing countries. The conclusion summarises the links and tensions between these approaches. The intention is to provide a solid conceptual foundation for the remaining stages of the ongoing WeD programme. This includes a conceptual synthesis of the idea of wellbeing applicable to development contexts; a suitable methodology and suite of research instruments to study wellbeing; and the generation of significant, reliable and meaningful data and findings in our four research countries. This paper is a revised and abbreviated version of Chapter 1 of the forthcoming book, Wellbeing in Developing Countries: From Theory to Research, edited by Ian Gough and J Allister McGregor, to be published by Cambridge University Press.

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Authors Title No Date
J. Allister McGregor Researching Wellbeing: From Concepts to Methodology
WeD20 September 2006
Summary (full paper available in .pdf format)
This paper presents an integrated model of wellbeing and summarises the suite of methods to assess it developed within the Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) ESRC research group. The paper begins by rehearsing the underlying notion of wellbeing in the WeD project: an interplay between the resources that a person is able to command; what they are able to achieve with those resources; and the meanings that frame these and that drive their aspirations and strategies. The second part identifies five key ideas that underpin a new theory of human wellbeing. These are: the centrality of the social human being; harm and needs; meaning, culture and identity; time and processes; resourcefulness, resilience and adaptation. Part three then draws these together to present an integrated model of wellbeing. This requires an interdisciplinary research methodology outlined in part four. The WeD suite comprises six research components grouped into three pairs: those that deal with outcomes, those that deal mainly with structures and those that deal with processes. The paper concludes by noting the challenges that still confront the wellbeing agenda: how to undertake inter-disciplinary research, how to make it accessible to policy-makers and politicians, and how to reconcile competing visions, notably global and local deliberations on the universal and normative. This paper is a revised and abbreviated version of Chapter 14 of the forthcoming book, Wellbeing in Developing Countries: From Theory to Research, edited by Ian Gough and J Allister McGregor, to be published by Cambridge University Press.

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Author Title No Date
James Copestake Multiple Dimensions Of Social Assistance: The Case Of Peru’s ‘Glass Of Milk’ Programme
WeD21 September 2006
Summary - full paper available in .pdf format
Social assistance has attracted renewed interest in countries where economic growth is doing too little on its own to address high levels of income inequality and poverty. Research into the material effects of such programmes is important but can be misleading if it fails to capture their full meaning to intended beneficiaries and other stakeholders. This is illustrated by a case study of Peru’s ‘Glass of Milk’ programme, drawing on mostly qualitative evidence of its material, social and cultural dimensions. The programme is found to be well adapted to diverse contexts, but in a way that enhances its efficacy as a gendered instrument of mass patronage rather than as a means of addressing Peru’s structural inequalities. The paper concludes that a switch to conditional cash transfers is unlikely, on its own, to change this.

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Author Title No Date
Geof Wood Using Security to Indicate Wellbeing
WeD22 October 2006
Summary - full paper available in .pdf format
This paper argues that basic security should be given greater prominence in human wellbeing. Security and predictability express a primordial instinct to seek safety for oneself and valued others, and to avoid fear of uncertainty. Although the idea of security is inextricably associated with law and order and statutory rights, here the focus is more upon the informal and social conditions for the predictability of wellbeing. The second section relates individual to societal security by building on to the human development 'freedom to' agenda a 'freedom from' security agenda, using the 'welfare regimes' framework of Gough and Wood et al. The third and fourth section focuses on informal welfare regimes and their 'dependent security', wherein poor people secure some measure of informal protection and predictability in return for dependence on patrons and longer-term insecurity. The remainder of the paper defines dependent security and indicates how to track movement towards more autonomous security. It identifies seven principles to improve poor people's security: altering time preference behaviour; enhancing capacities to prepare for hazards; formalising rights; 'de-clientelisation'; enlarging choice via pooling risks; improving the predictability of institutional performance; and strengthening membership of well-functioning collective institutions. In each case, indicators are proposed to track these and monitor security. The paper identifies those ingredients of behaviour which are, or could be, in the control of ordinary people in poor situations, given modest policy support. In this way, the paper concludes, socio-economic security can be better integrated into our analysis of wellbeing. This paper is a revised version of Chapter 5 of the forthcoming book, Wellbeing in Developing Countries: From Theory to Research, edited by Ian Gough and J Allister McGregor, to be published by Cambridge University Press.

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Authors Title No Date
Sarah White and Mark Ellison Wellbeing, Livelihoods and Resources in Social Practice
WeD23 October 2006
Summary - full paper available in .pdf format
This paper explores the ways a concept of 'resources' can contribute to our understanding of wellbeing. The major argument is that resources do not have a fixed meaning but are constituted through social practice. While we may construct 'resource profiles' to record different types of resources, their significance for wellbeing will depend on understandings about how these resources can and cannot be used in particular contexts. We must avoid reifying categories like ‘capitals’ or 'assets'. All forms of resources, such as land for example, have material, relational and symbolic dimensions. How resources are used in practice also depends critically on who is involved, and the structural forms of power they can deploy. This approach exposes the common 'conceit' when development agencies assume that because they are familiar with 'a resource' they understand what would constitute its 'rational' use in different contexts. The paper concludes with a plea for some balance between a universal framework and one sensitive to local understandings.
This paper is a revised version of Chapter 7 of the forthcoming book,
Wellbeing in Developing Countries: From Theory to Research, edited by Ian Gough and J Allister McGregor, to be published by Cambridge University
Press.

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Author Title No Date
James Copestake Poverty and Exclusion, Resources and Relationships: Theorising the Links Between Economic and Social Development
WeD24 October 2006
Summary - full paper available in .pdf format
This paper investigates the nature of illbeing in a Latin American context, with particular reference to debates over the relationship between resource endowments and processes of social exclusion and inclusion. It does so by summarising and criticising one particular approach - the social exclusion theory of the Peruvian economist Adolfo Figueroa. The paper outlines how his sigma society model explains the persistence of dualism, inequality and poverty in developing societies such as Peru. What is novel for economics is how the persistence of dualism and inequality are endogenous to the model; this is because of the interest elite groups in Peru have in investing in status differences and cultural barriers to defend unequal power relations. The model warns against a false optimism that economic growth can resolve the structural dynamics that reproduce exclusion and poverty. Going beyond the model the paper argues that a more realistic framework acknowledges greater fluidity in the negotiation of relationships, rather than assuming these are quite such a rigid function of people's resources. This paper is a revised version of Chapter 9 of the forthcoming book, Wellbeing in Developing Countries: From Theory to Research, edited by Ian Gough and J Allister McGregor, to be published by Cambridge University Press.

 

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Author Title No Date
Philippa Bevan Researching Wellbeing Across the Disciplines: Some Key Intellectual Problems and Ways Forward
WeD25 October 2006
Summary - full paper available in .pdf format
A research agenda into wellbeing requires multi-disciplinary research but this is notoriously difficult to achieve. This paper explores some of the barriers and proposes a route forward. Based on an independent research project which included the Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) programme and other multi-disciplinary poverty research as its subjects, it develops what is labelled the Foundations of Knowledge Framework (FoKF). The FoKF identifies nine foundational elements of conceptual thinking in the social sciences as they attempt to study poverty: the domain or research question, the value or normative standpoint, the ontology or underlying assumptions about the nature of the world, the epistemology or ways of knowing about the world, the central theories and models, the associated methodologies and modes of analysis, the nature of the empirical findings, the rhetorical language in which the results are couched, and the implications for policy and practice. It is argued that these generate the intellectual barriers to successful multi or inter-disciplinary communication and work. All nine must be considered when academics from different disciplinary or sub-disciplinary backgrounds come together in efforts to collaborate effectively. The Framework makes explicit what assumptions, presumptions or blind spots are present in particular disciplinary contributions to the study of poverty or wellbeing. The final part builds on the framework to advocate ways of handling the nine elements to enable successful multi-disciplinary studies of wellbeing. This paper is a revised version of Chapter 13 of the forthcoming book, Wellbeing in Developing Countries: From Theory to Research, edited by Ian Gough and J Allister McGregor, to be published by Cambridge University Press.

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Author Title No Date
Laura Camfield The Why And How Of Understanding ‘Subjective’ Wellbeing: Exploratory Work By The WeD Group In Four Developing Countries
WeD26 December 2006
Summary - full paper available in .pdf format
The paper reviews participatory studies carried out in developing countries during the past decade and contrasts their findings with qualitative data from the initial phase of the Wellbeing in Developing Countries ESRC Research Group’s exploration of quality of life. This used primarily qualitative methods to establish the categories and components of subjective quality of life or wellbeing in four developing countries: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Thailand. The comparison supports the proposition that a more open-ended approach provides insight into how people understand, pursue, and preserve their wellbeing.

Subjective quality of life was not simply equated with happiness, but related to the aspects of life people regarded as important. For example, observing religion was part of both living well and being a model person, but not a source of happy memories, which suggests that treating happiness as the ‘universal goal’ is not sufficient to capture people’s motivations. People’s values and aspirations were ascertained via three questions: ‘When were you happiest?’ ‘What are the characteristics of a woman or man who lives well?’ ‘Who are the people you most admire/ respect or the best/ model persons of this community?’ The answers revealed many commonalities across sites and countries; for example, having good relationships with immediate and natal family was universally important (‘relatedness’). It also revealed cultural differences; for example, ‘not being materialistic’ was only characteristic of a ‘model’ person in Northeast Thailand, possibly because of its link to the Buddhist ideal of the ‘world renouncer’.

Framing the enquiry in terms of wellbeing rather than poverty enables researchers to explore what poor people have and are able to do, rather than focusing on their deficits, which should produce more credible and respectful representations of people’s lives to inform development policy and practice. The desired outcome is development that creates the conditions for people to experience wellbeing, rather than undermining their existing strategies.

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Author Title No Date
Janet Mancini Bilson Conducting Focus Group Research Across Cultures: Consistency And Comparability
WeD27 December 2006
Summary - full paper available in .pdf format
Conducting professional and science-based focus groups across several cultures presents unique challenges that must be addressed from the point of conceptualisation and research design forward. This paper presents several principles for ensuring consistency of research strategies and comparability of data when focus groups are conducted in several countries for the same project. Examples of focus groups that have been carried out in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru, and Thailand—the four WeD research bases—are included, as well as suggestions from those who have conducted multi-country focus groups for similar projects. Topics include issues surrounding research design, sample selection and participant recruitment, development of the moderator’s guide, moderation skills and interpretation, data analysis, and report preparation. This working paper is based in part on Billson 2004, 2005, 2006.


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Author Title No Date
Tom Lavers Asking People What They Want or Telling Them What They ‘Need’? Contrasting A Theory of Human Need With Local Expressions Of Goals (.pdf)
WeD28 February 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
This paper uses the Quality of Life research carried out by the Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) Research Group to examine the importance respondents have attributed to a variety of goals in two rural communities in Ethiopia. The results are analysed at the community, household and individual levels to expose the contestation involved in expressions of goal preference at different levels, and the power relations that underlie and contribute to the formation of these goal preferences. In this way, taking communities or households as homogenous units is shown to be inaccurate and potentially misleading. Analysis of individual case studies also provides insight into the complex decision-making process where people with access to limited resources are forced to give certain goals priority depending on current exigencies. The fact that the ordering of priorities can change with time highlights the dangers of any one-off measure being considered as a time-independent picture of individuals’ goals.

By relating the results of the research to Doyal and Gough’s Theory of Human Need, the paper considers to what extent ‘universal’ human needs correspond to the most important goals as expressed by respondents in the Ethiopian research. Whilst considerable support is found for needs such as health, food and shelter, several respondents in the two research sites consider needs such as education to be unnecessary. This incongruence between the priority of people’s goals and theories of need leads us to question what the aim of development should be: to assist beneficiaries in the pursuit of what they want, or provide the things that they are thought to need.

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Author Title No Date
Geof Wood Labels, Welfare Regimes And Intermediation: Contesting Formal Power
WeD29 March 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
This paper revisits Wood's 1985 paper on the 'politics of development policy labelling', focusing on processes of categorisation and forms of intermediation. It first reviews the context and summarises the original 'labelling as political manipulation' argument. Reviewing subsequent development and sociological discourses, it develops an autocritique of the hegemonic, statist assumptions of authoritative labelling. It then develops a revised argument which recognises the significance of plurality and contestation in the labelling process, as a way of understanding how formal power is either directly challenged or by-passed in more informal, less bureaucratically configured settings. It then deploys a comparative welfare regimes approach to capture more systematically the variations in intermediation, through which power is exercised and people pursue their livelihoods and wellbeing. The central feature of this welfare regimes framework is the relationship between rights, claims and correlative duties, and how these vary between different welfare regimes, and especially between formal bureaucratic practice and informal clientelism.

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Author Title No Date
Julie Newton Structures, Regimes and Wellbeing
WeD30 April 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
This paper proposes a way for the Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) ESRC research group to take on board the influence of wider societal structures on wellbeing. Often, the analysis of structures has been dominated by top down macro-level studies and intervention engaging little with the complexities and diversity of local realities on the ground. Similarly, bottom up micro studies have been criticised for being parochial in their failure to sufficiently situate the pursuit of livelihoods in the wider processes, structures and institutions that constrain and enable agency. The paper offers some propositions on how to bridge this gap using a welfare regimes framework.

It begins from a modification of Esping-Andersen’s ‘welfare state regime’ framework undertaken by Gough, Wood, Bevan and others (2004), which sets out a broader welfare regime framework sensitised to developing countries. This paper extends that approach to embrace the WeD wellbeing perspective. First, this extends the analysis from a focus on welfare outcomes to wellbeing outcomes and processes. Second, it makes the case for exploring how resources are negotiated through relationships across the institutional landscape of the state, market, community and household. Third, it argues for greater emphasis on the role of culture in explaining wellbeing outcomes. Lastly, it proposes analysing separately the processes of stratification and mobilisation which reproduce or undermine these welfare regimes. Rather, these are separate processes affecting wellbeing which shed additional insights into the foundational notion of autonomy which lies at the heart of much thinking about wellbeing. Taken together this new framework, it is anticipated, can shed light on the way macro-level structures are mediated by local level agents and mediators.

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Author Title No Date
Geof Wood Clashing Values In Bangladesh: NGOs, Secularism And The Ummah WeD31 April 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
NGOs in Bangladesh are now caught up in a broader global discourse about the relationship between political systems, political culture and development. In earlier decades after liberation, NGOs operated within a normative assumption of secular democracy and a separation between civil society and state. This position was challenged by the realities of military governments between 1975 and 1990, and by problematic governance and corruption since 1991. However, within the context of global faith based movements, the centre of gravity political culture is now shifting to confront these secular and liberal assumptions. Bangladesh is now a vital site of contestation between the competing traditions of secularity and the ‘ummah’, and thus between western (donor led) conceptions of a civil society and a more faith-based fundamentalist basis of political inclusion and incorporation. The Islamicisation of political culture is also generating a split within the NGO community. Some NGOs, with a previous secular perspective, have opted to avoid engagement by re-positioning their profile solely in terms of service delivery. Other, often more recent, NGOs promote ‘Islamic values’ and are comfortable with their incorporation into a concept of ‘ummah’. However, there remains a significant third group of NGOs, with secular origins, which are trying to steer a complex course, pursuing secular democracy via a rights based agenda especially around women, yet differentiating themselves from the donor, western agenda. Thus they are embarked on a basic contestation over the meaning of nationalism in Bangladesh.

 

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Author Title No Date
James Copestake and Geof Wood Reproducing Unequal Security: Peru as a Wellbeing Regime
WeD32 August 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
The article contributes to the literature on comparative welfare regimes by developing a model that recognises multiple dimensions of wellbeing, with particular emphasis on security of agency. Taking Peru as an example, the model relates a broader range of wellbeing indicators to conditioning socio-political factors; individual capabilities to negotiate the institutional landscape of state, market, community and household; and socio-political reproduction consequences. Peru is depicted as an unsettled regime because of lack of consensus over the prevailing distribution of opportunities and outcomes. The paper moves beyond a deterministic approach by analysing opportunities and constraints to an evolutionary erosion of inequalities through the gradual acquisition of social rights and political freedoms, taking social protection and human rights as case studies. It concludes by reflecting on the added explanatory power of a broader wellbeing over a more materialist welfare regime model, arguing that it brings the question of poor people’s agency more to the centre of analysis.

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Author Title No Date
Katie Wright-Revolledo “You Are Not Going There To Amuse Yourself,” Barriers To Achieving Wellbeing Through International Migration: The Case Of Peruvian Migrants In London And Madrid
WeD33 August 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
This paper provides a wellbeing analysis of international migration by inductively analysing perceived obstacles or blocks to achieving wellbeing amongst a sample of 99 Peruvian migrants based in London and Madrid. It explores how people construct their wellbeing in different cultural settings and adapt as they move between different societal contexts and systems of meaning. Adopting a wellbeing perspective has considerable advantages for understanding the phenomenon of international migration. At the same time it affirms key elements in our understanding of wellbeing through post hoc identification of four major obstacles to improved wellbeing: loss of autonomy, enjoyment, relatedness and social status.

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Author Title No Date
Cathy Rozel Farnworth Well-Being is a Process of Becoming: Research with Organic Farmers in Madagascar
WeD34 September 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
Malagasy players see in export-orientated organic agriculture a way for the island to build upon its historic export strengths - spices, essential oils, medicinal plants and tropical fruits. They point to the de facto organic status of most farming in the country and view organic production strategies as a means for Malagasy farmers to differentiate their produce in the highly competitive world market. However, producing for the export market poses significant challenges for Malagasy farmers. Despite its apparent ‘fit’ with existing farming practice, ‘true’ certified organic practice does not necessarily offer a means towards achieving a Malagasy farmer-defined ‘good life’. Smallholders can be disempowered through their incorporation into wider systemic relationships whose more powerful actors – such as buyers and consumers – and their ‘rules’ about what ‘organic’ is, for example, are necessarily unfamiliar. Yet farmers are very interested in the significant opportunities for much-needed cash that organic farming offers.

This paper argues that strengthening farmer agency, and thus their presence as actors in international food chains, can be partially achieved if farmers are involved in devising the rules for organic and social certification. I set out nine principles that I have developed which seem important when trying to capture and measure ‘quality of life’ for the purposes of social certification. My theoretical and empirical work, detailed here, is set within a methodological discussion on how to best ensure that research is ‘respondent-led’. Respondent-led research is, I argue, critical for ensuring that an understanding of the components of ‘quality of life’, and their operationalisation as standards and indicators, is truly meaningful to the target group.

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Authors Title No Date
James Copestake, Monica Guillen Royo,
Wan-Jung Chou, Tim Hinks, Jackeline Velazco
An Analysis Of The Multiple Links Between Economic And Subjective Wellbeing Indicators Using Data From Peru WeD35 September 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
Previous studies in Peru have identified apparent mismatches between people’s perceptions of their wellbeing and indicators of their material welfare. This paper draws on primary data from relatively poor localities in Central Peru to investigate these further. We first present estimates of respondents’ household income, expenditure and poverty status. This data is then compared with individual responses to a standard happiness question. We find people are generally happier in rural areas even though poverty in incidence there is greater. Additional data on different distinct aspects of subjective wellbeing is then used to explain the apparent paradox. We find rural respondents are more satisfied with the place where they live and progress in raising a family, while those in urban areas have higher material and related aspirations which they find hard to fulfil.

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Authors Title No Date
Joe Devine Governance, Democracy and the Politics of Wellbeing
WeD36 September 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
This paper examines the relationship between democracy and organised violence with reference to Bangladesh and builds on primary data gathered as part of a more general exploration into the politics of wellbeing. It highlights the significance of an emerging governance landscape that rests on two linked social phenomena: the deepening of political party activity and the rise of organized groups known as mastaans or musclemen. The overlap between political party activity and mastaan activity is considerable, and comes to mark the boundaries of social interaction; dominate the struggle for valued resources; and inform the articulation of wider social order. The co-existence of the two phenomena introduces an important governance paradox. On the one hand, the deepening of political party activity opens up of new democratic spaces in which, in theory, people can address their wellbeing needs in a more direct manner. On the other hand, the presence of musclemen controlling these new democratic spaces means that the practical struggle for wellbeing exposes people to intimidating and violent forms of politics. 

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Authors Title No Date
Mariano Rojas Enhancing Poverty Abatement Programs: A subjective wellbeing contribution WeD37 December 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
This paper questions the assumption used in designing social policies that raising people’s income automatically translates into greater well-being. Based on a subjective well-being approach and a representative survey from Costa Rica the paper shows that there is substantial dissonance in the classification of persons as poor and as being in well-being deprivation. The existence of dissonances leads to the conceptualisation of different trajectories out-of-poverty and into well-being. Public policies oriented towards the abatement of income poverty can have a greater impact on people’s well-being if they recognise the complexity of human beings and acknowledge that their programmes affect satisfaction in all domains of life. The paper states that public policy should not only be concerned with getting people out of income poverty, but also with placing them in a life-satisfying situation. The paper also discusses strategies that could improve poverty-abatement programmes.

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Authors Title No Date
Eduardo Wills, Gazi Islam and Marilyn Hamilton Subjective Well-being in Cities: A Cross- Cultural Analysis in Bogotá, Belo Horizonte and Toronto WeD38 December 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
Subjective indicators of well-being have been proposed as guides for development policies since development is not only limited to material wealth (Veenhoven, 2002; Diener , 2006). Development studies have suffered from a materialistic bias (Easterlin, 1995). The paper presents a comparative cross-cultural investigation about domains of subjective well-being (SWB) and a global measure of Satisfaction with Life as a Whole (SWLS) in three cities: Bogotá-Colombia; Belo-Horizonte-Brazil and Toronto-Canada . The Personal and National Wellbeing Indexes (PWI and NWI) developed by the International Wellbeing Group (IWG, Cummins, 1996; Cummins, et al, 2002) as well as the Satisfaction with Life as a Whole scale (SWLS, Diener, et al., 1985) were applied and successfully validated at the city level. The cities chosen have similar democratic institutions but different cultures and different “objective” indicators of development. Significant differences across cities as well as significant interaction effects were found for the subjective well-being indexes and demographical variables. Based on these results, we propose that NWI may be seen as a contextual antecedent of PWI, consistent with our view that individual evaluations of SWB may be determined by dispositional factors (top-down), context (bottom-up domains) and cultural values. The validation of the subjective well-being indexes in cultural contexts that lie outside where mainstream research is conducted is an important contribution in a field that has been mainly dominated by European, American and Australian samples.

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Authors Title No Date
Habib Tiliouine Health and Subjective Wellbeing in developing Countries: The case of Algeria WeD39 December 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
This paper explores the effects of health on wellbeing in a sample of 2,909 subjects, all participants in a wellbeing survey conducted in Algeria in 2004. The participants were divided into two groups on the basis of their yes/no responses to a question about the existence of a persistent health condition. Their scores were then compared for the Personal Wellbeing Index, objective self-report health questions, and additional items relating to culture, environment, and social networks. Correlational analyses and regressions were conducted to explore the relationship between health status, measures of health, and subjective wellbeing.
Significant differences are found between the two groups in feelings of pain, anxiety and level of normal sleep, which further validate the comparison. The results show a marginal difference in Personal Wellbeing Index score in favour of the healthier group, due principally to the effect of the Health Domain. Moreover, the healthier group showed significantly higher satisfaction with marriage, friendship and family relationships, which raises the problem of the direction of causation between the state of health and social relationships. Findings are discussed in relation to health provisions in Algeria and previous SWB research.

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Authors Title No Date
Nicola Jones and Andy Sumner Does Mixed Methods Research Matter to Understanding Childhood Well-Being? WeD40 December 2007
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
There has been a rich debate in development studies on combining research methods in recent years. We explore the particular challenges and opportunities surrounding mixed methods approaches to childhood well-being. We argue that there are additional layers of complexity due to the distinctiveness of children’s experiences of deprivation or ill-being. This paper is structured as follows. Sections 2 and 3 discuss the nature of mixed methods approaches and tensions. Sections 4 and 5 apply these debates to researching childhood well-being in particular, in both Northern and Southern contexts. Section 6 concludes and discusses future work.

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Authors Title No Date
Katie Wright and Allister McGregor Connecting Wellbeing in North and South: Negotiating Meanings in Transnational Migration WeD41 December 2007
Summary (full paper available soon)
This paper explores the ways in which the Peru based relatives and friends view the experiences of Peruvian migrants living in London and Madrid. It uses a practical and specific conception of wellbeing to show how the meanings that are essential to how we socially construct wellbeing are negotiated across transnational space. While there is much positive literature on the benefits of migration it is also apparent that many migrants face profound challenges in their struggle to achieve wellbeing in their European destinations. The paper presents a number of case studies of migrants and their relatives and friends based in Lima. It explains what people regard to be the benefits of migration as well as revealing that relatives and friends often have a realistic understanding of the difficulties faced by the migrants. Against this backdrop there are then negotiations over whether these difficulties are to be ascribed to structural conditions surrounding the migrant or to the failings of the individual. The paper concludes by offering additional insights into the meanings that ensure that migration continues to be regarded in Peru as a means of achieving greater wellbeing.

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Author Title No Date
Susan Johnson The Role Of Markets In The Construction Of Wellbeing: The Need For A Polanyian Perspective WeD42 January 2008
Summary (full paper available as .pdf)
Recent research on subjective wellbeing (SWB) has demonstrated the prime importance of social factors such as relationships with family and friends alongside income and work. While it has offered a new route to measuring utility for economists, SWB has revealed “puzzles and paradoxes” in relating it to income. Wellbeing is an holistic concept which seeks to engage with understanding people’s lives as they are lived in society. But the analytical boundaries between the social sciences thwart such an enquiry. After reviewing key findings on work and income for their connection to social dimensions, this paper reviews writings of key contributors to the SWB literature – Layard and Sen – and traces the problem to the use of the analytical concept of the self-regulating market. Polanyi’s The Great Transformation argues that the idea of the market as a self-regulating mechanism itself drove the promotion of a laissez-faire economy, so becoming detached from society. Polanyi contends that the concept of the market has itself to be re-embedded in wider society if we are to understand the means through which provisioning of needs takes place. Polanyi’s concept of the institutedness of the economy through reciprocity and redistribution as well as exchange provides a useful starting point for this investigation.

 

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