ABSTRACT
Martha Nussbaum has made a significant contribution to the development field through her work on the ‘capabilities approach’. This chapter examines this approach and what it offers to theory and practice in development. Beginning with a review of the scope of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, the chapter then sets out some concrete examples of the ways in which this approach can be used to understand development practice. Nussbaum’s work integrates inquiry in the social, cultural, political, legal and, most importantly, ethical dimensions of human development and the responses of policy and practice. This chapter acknowledges these dimensions but in doing so seeks to balance necessary attention to theoretical and philosophical issues with the applied implications of the approach in development practice and policy.
