A Capabilitarian Participatory Paradigm: Methods, Methodologies and Cosmological Issues and Possibilities

ABSTRACT

Meaningful participation of people as agents in development practice has been a central concern in capabilitarian scholarship and of Amartya Sen's own work, as a valuable freedom and functioning in itself. Yet, there has been limited attention until now about knowledge generation processes and who is fully included, despite a growing body of literature arguing for pluriversality and decolonial approaches against historical and geographical inequalities at many levels. The paper proposes that capabilitarian scholarship could be enriched by considering a pluriverse of methodological perspectives, building on the work already undertaken but taking it further to create multi-epistemic conversations. This paper explores why the methodological and cosmological – onto-epistemological – unexplored areas of participatory research in capabilitarian scholarship should be embedded in our research culture and practice for more inclusive, decolonial, methodologically challenging empirical strategies (beyond methods and methodologies) that will place those situated at the margins of epistemic divisions and conflicts in the centre of knowledge production and debates. To this end and adding to the debates, the paper first considers participatory projects reported on in the journal before presenting an original framing of a capabilitarian participatory paradigm. The paper further proposes some principles that underpin its operationalisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Capabilitarian
• participatory research
• decoloniality
• community voices
• pluriverse
• paradigm‌

Acknowledgement

We are grateful for all our formal and informal engagement in the past year with our local and international CA colleagues about the ideas developed in this paper. Thank you for helping us to solidify our thinking.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Research Foundation: [Grant Number 86540] and Grant PID2019-107251RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033.

Notes on contributors

Carmen Martinez-Vargas

Carmen Martinez-Vargas is currently based at the SARCHI Chair’s Higher Education and Human Development Research Programme at the University of the Free State, South Africa, as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. She has more than 6 years’ experience working with participatory approaches within the Global North and Global South having collaborated in more than six national and international participatory projects. Her research interest problematises the intersection of decoloniality and social justice in the context of human development and Higher Education using participatory research.

Melanie Walker

Melanie Walker is South African research chair in Higher Education and Human Development and distinguished professor at the University of the Free State, South Africa. She is president-elect of the HDCA, a fellow of ASSAF and the HDCA, honorary professor at the University of Nottingham and an A1-rated researcher with the NRF (South Africa).

F. Melis Cin

F. Melis Cin is a senior lecturer in the Department of Education Research in Lancaster University. She explores the relationship between education and international development. She also investigates how education can be used as a peacebuilding tool in conflict zones and employs socially engaged art interventions as a way to understand the local meanings of peace in formal and informal education settings.

Alejandra Boni

Alejandra Boni is a professor at the Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain) and deputydirector of Ingenio (CSIC-UPV) institute and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Free State (South Africa).She works and research in the field of higher education using the capability approach as a main source of inspiration. She is also part of the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium leading the formative evaluation component.