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Papers from the January 2003 inaugural workshop

At this workshop, papers were presented by the four collaboration countries reviewing their current state of poverty and wellbeing.

Also four framework papers were presented

1. Resource Profiles and the Social and Cultural Construction of Wellbeing
2. Needs, Capabilities and Wellbeing: Relating the Universal and the Local
3. Quality of Life and Wellbeing
4. Discursive Repertoires and the Negotiation of Wellbeing

Country Papers - Abstracts

BANGLADESH - I.A. Khan and A. Ali
The paper presents an overview of the current understandings of poverty and wellbeing in Bangladesh based on existing literature. The paper is divided into three sections. The first is an overview of the poverty situation examining magnitudes, trends and poverty groupings. The next section looks at how poverty is conceptualised in different approaches: consumption based, Participatory Poverty Analysis (PPA), resource profile and livelihoods approaches. The final section presents two methodological challenges: (i) the mismatch between conceptual understanding and operationalisation, and (ii) issues related to integration of different methods.

The full paper is under revision and will be available later in the year. For details contact wed@bath.ac.uk.

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ETHIOPIA - A. Pankhurst and A. Gebre
After a brief introduction to Ethiopia, the paper looks at the current data on poverty and inequality and discusses specific issues relevant to wellbeing in the country; the latter includes drought and famine, war and conflict, the HIV-AIDS pandemic and inequality. Inequality can appear in different contexts: wealth, rural-urban, regional, gender, age, class, religion, ethnicity and caste. Changing views on the conceptualisation of poverty by governments, donors, NGOs, academics and local people are discussed. Static versus dynamic models of poverty and the use of quantitative and qualitative data are discussed. The paper concludes by identifying methodological challenges of studying particular social groups: pastoralists, migrants, internally displaced and homeless people, beggars, street children, occupational groups of craft workers and female urban occupations.

The full paper is under revision and will be available later in the year. For details contact wed@bath.ac.uk.

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PERU - T. Altamirano and A. Figueroa
This revised version of the paper presents an overview of published literature on poverty and related concepts in Peru. Its purpose, explained further in Section 1, is to contribute to universal and interdisciplinary understanding of poverty, while at the same time giving due weight to discipline-specific and local understandings. Sections 2 to 4 organise past contributions to the literature on poverty in Peru into economics, anthropology and sociology streams. Section 5 argues that each stream can be incorporated into a single framework, centred on the concepts of inclusion and exclusion.

A revised version of the paper is available. Click here

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THAILAND - A. Masae and B. Promphakping
Thailand has been a country with significant economic growth in the past. Before it faced economic crisis at the beginning of 1997, it had seen one of the highest GDP growth rates in the world. Despite the country's economic achievement, poverty issues have always been significant.


The paper presents an overview of the current understandings and policy issues related to poverty and wellbeing in Thailand. Special focus is given to north eastern and southern regions of the country. The first part of the paper deals with national level issues: the relationship between development and poverty, rural development plans with focus on poverty, defining and measurement of poverty, the economic crisis and the setback to poverty reduction, and the current policy regime. The second and third parts emphasize on poverty issues and current situations in southern and north eastern regions of the country. The fourth part discusses methodological challenges in studying poverty and wellbeing in Thailand.

The full paper is under revision and will be available later in the year. For details contact wed@bath.ac.uk.

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Conceptual Papers - Abstracts

Resource Profiles and the Social and Cultural Construction of Wellbeing
A. McGregor and B. Kebede
The paper presents the ontological basis of the Resource Profiles Framework (RPF) by positing it in an agency-structure context. The basic elements of the research programme (people, physical things, relationships and structure) that provide the basis for research under WeD are identified. In particular, the inter-relationship between culture and structure is examined. It argues for integrating culture into the analysis of needs, wellbeing and poverty, an area undeveloped in the literature. Moving on from the more anthropological roots of the RPF the paper then explores recent developments in economics relevant to the research in WeD. Throughout the connection between the RPF, the Theory of Human Needs and the Quality of Life literature both on conceptual and empirical levels is explored. The paper concludes by presenting some aspects of the fieldwork; types of data to be collected and instruments to be implemented are discussed.

The full paper is under revision and will be available shortly. For details contact wed@bath.ac.uk.

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Needs, Capabilities and Wellbeing: Relating the Universal and the Local
D. Clark and I. Gough
The first part of this paper addresses a central question of the WeD research programme: the relation between 'the universal and the local'. It contends that local perspectives, preferences and values can be legitimately challenged under certain circumstances. It then turns to three major contributions to developing a universalist conception of wellbeing: Amartya Sen's and Martha Nussbaum's work on functionings and capabilities, and Len Doyal and Ian Gough's theory of human need. The relation between these, especially need theory, and the WHOQOL and Research Profiles approaches is then briefly discussed in part two. Finally, it draws out some implications of the universal-local distinction for the future research methodology of the WeD programme.

The full paper is under revision and will be available shortly. For details contact wed@bath.ac.uk.

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Quality of Life and Wellbeing
L. Camfield and S. Skevington
The purpose of the review is to integrate the fields of quality of life (QOL) and subjective wellbeing (SWB) and to look at the implications of this body of work for research on poverty, inequality and human needs. First we critically appraise important factors that are known to impact on SWB. Then we consider recent developments in the assessment of quality of life starting from a health perspective and extending its conceptualisation into the general field. We examine advances and shortcomings in theories and methods, and identify areas that still require conceptual elaboration and technical development. Lastly we compare the three different frameworks adopted by the WeD group, and summarise some key issues that will affect explorations of QOL in cross-cultural studies of poverty.

The full paper is under revision and will be available shortly. For details contact wed@bath.ac.uk.

Discursive Repertoires and the Negotiation of Wellbeing
H. Dean

This revised version of the 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 cooperative,
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.

The revised version is available. Click here

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