The Curious Case of Using the Capability Approach in Australian Indigenous Policy

Abstract

The capability approach has been recently used in Australian Indigenous policy formation. What is curious about this use is how the approach has been used in some instances to justify current paternalistic and instructive policies for Indigenous Australians including behavioural conditions to welfare payments and income management—policy apparatuses aimed to create individual responsibility and to “re-engineer social norms of Indigenous people.” This interpretation of the capability approach is at odds with the writings of capability scholars. To examine this tension, this paper firstly reviews and clarifies the important concepts of freedom, agency and pluralism according to capability approach scholars, in particular Amartya Sen. The contestation between the writings of Sen and commentators of Indigenous policy is then addressed paying particular attention to three areas; deficit discourse, individual responsibility and the ends and means of policy. An examination of how the capability approach can be used to analyse welfare to work and activation strategies within wider Australian Indigenous policy is then undertaken, followed by some broader reflections on the discursive environments in which misinterpretations of the capability approach could continue to take place.

Keywords:

• Indigenous policy
• Individual responsibility
• Freedom
• Agency
• Pluralism

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Professor Jon Altman, Professor Matthew Gray, Associate Professor Janet Hunt, Dr Jerry Schwab, Dr Julie Lahn, Dr Katherine Curchin, Dr Krushil Watene, Frances Morphy and the editorial committee of the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Sen has even problematized the primacy of formal school education as a fundamental capability in development discourse (Sen 2005). Alkire (2002) shows how Sen has a wider view of education beyond technical literacy and numeracy, one that incorporates different worldviews and knowledge systems that may challenge the dominant development discourse. While this is the case, Sen should nevertheless not be interpreted as dismissing the need for education, health or other capabilities—instead, what it does show is his rejection of prioritizing particular capabilities and how the freedom to articulate capabilities is as important as their achievement.

2. The Scoping study shows the sampling size of the study as 134 people (33) of a wider Indigenous population of 5700 (1).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elise Klein

Dr Elise Klein is a Lecturer in Development Studies at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne.