Chapter 6 Interpreting Refugee Women’s Life Stories
6.3 Human Capabilities and Gender Analysis: A Framework for Interpreting Migrant Women’s Live Stories
In her publication Women and Human Development, Martha Nussbaum (2000:36) explains that one of the purposes of her book is to provide systematic arguments that might assist us in ‘criticising unjust social arrangements’, as well as ‘preventing the sort of self-deceptive rationalising that frequently makes us collaborators’ or silent and sometimes ignorant bystanders in the perpetration of injustice. The Human Capabilities Approach (Nussbaum 2000, 2006; Sen 1999, 2009) addresses both general and particular concerns, taking into account how people are positioned and what they are able to do with the personal, social, and material resources available to them. Both Sen and Nussbaum insist that particularity and context are important in deciding which resources are needed for people to flourish.
Importantly, their approach looks at people as ends rather than as means to ends. The good life, according to Sen and Nussbaum, is the ability of people to be and do what they have the capability of being and doing. This means being able to do valuable things, to choose from different livings and meaningful affiliations, and not to be constrained into a particular form of life:
We want an approach that is respectful of each person’s struggle for flourishing that treats each person as ... a source of agency and worth in her own right ... But this very respect means taking a stand on the conditions that permit them to follow their own lights free from tyrannies imposed by politics and tradition (Nussbaum 2000:69).
At the core of the Human Capabilities approach is ‘the ... idea of the human being as a dignified ... being’ who has an inherent need, indeed a claim to being supported in her desire to shape –
Her own life in co-operation and reciprocity with others, rather than being passively shaped or pushed around by the world ... We see the person ... as somehow ... above the mechanical
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workings of nature, and yet in need of support for the fulfilment of many central projects (Nussbaum 2000:73).
To this end, Nussbaum (2000) proposes a list of ten central capabilities (see Table 7.1). As suggested by Richard Hugman (2010a), the Capabilities Approach provides for a useful extension of social work’s existing ethical frameworks: Despite being developed with people’s particular situations in mind, the central capabilities exert a primary moral claim in that they have cross-cultural resonance and ‘do not require justification by reference to any other value’ (Hugman 2010a:133). As such, the notion of capabilities grounds rather than competes with, people’s claims to human rights. Values and principles traditionally embraced in social work such as respect for diversity and uniqueness, or the right to self-determination, are secondary values in that their details, meanings, and emphases ‘differ between contexts and assist in achieving primary values’ (Hugman 2010a:134).
Important for the purpose of this paper is that Nussbaum (2000:2-3) locates her arguments in the observation that, ‘all too often women are ... treated as mere instruments of the ends of others – reproducers, caregivers, sexual outlets ... There is no country that treats women as well as its men ... Developing countries, however, present especially urgent problems’. It follows that,
Feminist philosophy ... should ... focus on the urgent needs and interests of women in the developing world whose concrete material and social contexts must be well understood, in dialogue with them, before adequate recommendations for improvement can be made (Nussbaum 2000:7).
It is here that Nussbaum’s arguments connect with those of gender analysts from whom we draw in making sense of Michelle’s and Aliyah’s lives: Raewyn Connell (2002), Michael Kimmel (2004) and Robert Morrell (2005) highlight the constructions of gender in the context of class, race, and social conditions in which people are situated. And Floretta Boonzaaier (2003) points out a need to shift from situating women abuse within an individual pathology and to include social or cultural theories, suggesting therefore that we adopt feminist multi-systemic perspectives to allow for the inclusion of multiple constructs and the exploration of various facets of women’s experiences (Boonzaaier 2003). This article presents one such effort.
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1. Life Being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length; [and] not ... one ... so reduced as to be not worth living
2. Bodily Health Being able to have good health, including reproductive health, to be adequately nourished; to have adequate shelter
3. Bodily Integrity Being able to move freely from place to place; having one’s bodily boundaries treated as sovereign, i.e. being able to be secure against assault, including sexual assault, child sexual abuse, and domestic violence; having opportunities for sexual satisfaction and for choice in matters of reproduction
4. Senses,
Imagination, and Thought
Being able to use the senses, to imagine, think and reason – and to do these things in a ‘truly human’ way – a way informed and cultivated by an adequate education ...
Being able to use imagination and thought in connection with experiencing and producing self-expressive work and events of one’s own choice, religious, literary, musical, and so forth; ... Being able to search for the ultimate meaning of life in one’s own way
5. Emotions Being able to have attachments to things and people outside ourselves; to love those who love and care for us, to grieve at their absence; in general, to love, to grieve, to experience longing, gratitude, and justified anger; Not having one’s emotional development blighted by overwhelming fear and anxiety, or by traumatic events of abuse and neglect (Supporting this capability means supporting forms of human association that can be shown to be crucial in their development)
6. Practical reason Being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one’s life (This entails protection for the liberty of conscience) ...
7. Affiliation A. Being able to live with and towards others: [That is,] to recognize and show concern for other human beings ...
B. Having the social bases of self-respect and non-humiliation: [That is,] to be treated as a dignified being whose worth is equal to that of others ...
8. Other Species Being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants and the world of nature
9. Play Being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities 10. Control over One’s
Environment
A. Political: Being able to participate effectively in political choices that govern one’s life ...
B. Material: Being able to hold property ...; having the right to seek employment on an equal basis with others ...
Table 6.1: Martha Nussbaum’s List of Central Capabilities (Nussbaum 2000:78-80;
emphases added)
Feminist theories have claimed that masculinity is about the drive for domination, power, and conquest, and that this also is how women experience masculinity (Connell 2002; Kimmel 2004). However, Stephen Whitehead (2001) cautions that such discourses reinforce gender inequalities, for example by positioning men as strong and women as vulnerable. And indeed, the analysis below of Aliyah’s and Michelle’s stories demonstrates otherwise. In the following, we evidence how both women draw on their manifold capabilities in the face of considerable adversity, developing complex patterns of compliance and resistance in the face of intersecting forms of oppression (Morrell 2001).
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