Читать книгу The Sage Handbook of Social Constructionist Practice - Группа авторов - Страница 57

We maintain that a movement towards the SDGs, hand in hand with the protection and promotion of human rights, is essential to our understanding of ‘the common good’ in societal and community development. Additionally, we argue that Collaborative Action Research may create conditions and processes to co-construct capacities (e.g., Krogstrup and Brix, 2019). Such capacities can be raised within and between relationships, organizations, and communities to co-construct better living conditions and capabilities (e.g., Cottam, 2018; Nussbaum, 2000; Sen, 1992, 1999) for ‘the common good’. By doing do, we are placing dignity, equity, well-being and relational flourishing at the very heart of our understanding of ‘the common good’, where the development of human capabilities is key. The concept of capabilities was coined by the Nobel Prize-winning academic Amartya Sen (1992, 1999) and has been further developed by Martha Nussbaum (2000) and others in somewhat different directions (Robeyns, 2005). Sen (1992, 1999) links the development of capabilities to freedom and quality of life. Sen makes a strong argument for replacing economic imperatives in societal development with the freedom to achieve well-being and argues that policies and our evaluations of them should concentrate on people's quality of life and the conditions affecting our possibilities to live a life that we have a reason to value. According to Dréze and Sen (2002, p. 6), within this framework, developments of capabilities are not to be mistaken for individual processes. Social opportunities are described as a crucial prerequisite:

The word ‘social’ in the expression ‘social opportunity’ … is a useful reminder not to view individuals and their opportunities in isolated terms. The options that a person has depend greatly on relations with others and on what the state and other institutions do. We shall be particularly concerned with those opportunities that are strongly influenced by social circumstances and public policy.

The development of capabilities is a moral issue for achieving social justice. This demands interdisciplinary, collaborative and participatory approaches to societal development, placing human rights and capabilities, democracy, empowerment and meaning-making processes at the center of attention. This will be our main focus when laying out our suggested framework for Collaborative Action Research.