ABSTRACT
Sen’s theory of justice can be treated as a general rather than substantive framework here to analyze unjust social and institutional arrangements. His capabilities approach is under-specified and thus is applicable in a diversity of disciplinary and applied contexts. The second chapter, ‘Sustainable Development as Freedom’, employs Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach in the context of Eastern Himalayan forest villages, specifically Singalila’s Samanden and Senchal’s Lalung. It grapples with the implications of forests becoming an evaluative context for capabilities and capabilities becoming an evaluative space within forests. The chapter compares actual livings and achievements and marks education and health deprivations in these two villages.
