The Capability Approach and the Politics of a Social Conception of Wellbeing

The paper discusses the potential and pitfalls of Sen's capability approach. It discusses areas where the capability approach has made a significant contribution to the social sciences. However, the paper argues that the approach fails to thke into account the social construction of meaning. It is these social meanings which gives us a basis from which we know what we value and judge how satisfied we feel about what we are able to achieve. From this viewpoint a person's state of wellbeing (or illbeing) is socially and psychologically co-constituted in specific social and cultural contexts. This entrails that the reality of trade-offs between competing conceptions of wellbeing has to be confronted, and that therefore such social conception of wellbeing is also profoundly political.