Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh - Sen's Capability Approach and the Role of Freedom of Choice
Mohammad Assaduzzaman is a PhD student in the department of Governance and Technology for Sustainability. (Co)Supervisors are prof.dr. S.M.M. Kuks and dr. F.H.J.M. Coenen from the faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences.
Climate change is progressing. Its adverse impacts undermine lives and livelihoods worldwide, and its uneven geography raises a question of justice. This thesis is based on the assessment of ‘the Capability Approach’, a normative framework developed by Amartya Sen, which has gained momentum in capability-related research and learning for human well-being, social, economic, environmental and cultural opportunity as social justice, freedom, equality and quality of life. It helps to understand human well-being as a multidimensional phenomenon which a single indicator, such as income, cannot capture. Adopting and implementing the capability approach has the potential to apprehend the social, economic and environmental dimensions of the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable populations in a country like Bangladesh for overall sustainable development.
This thesis grounds Amartya Sen’s capability framework to guide the methodological approach. Sen used the capability approach in the policy-oriented context and for articulating the Human Development Index (HDI). In development circles, the capability approach has provided foundations for the human development paradigm that regards human development as a process of enlarging people’s freedom of choice.
This research describes the capability approach through fundamental concepts such as well-being, functionings, capabilities, freedom of choice, individual choice, and effects of matter conversion factors. The capability approach is also widely used in applied and empirical studies; and the development of policy by government and non-government organizations in developing countries.
We address the issue of people’s adaptation responses to ecological and climate variability by using the broad normative framework of the capability approach to understand the role of individual freedom of choice in enhancing personal well-being. The most common use of the capability approach is to measure human well-being by expanding people’s agency freedom.
The thesis explores the capability approach framework by using it for assessing adaptation, risk reduction, livelihoods and individual well-being related to climate change migration and adaptation decision-making in line with the freedom of choice. No ready-made theory can smoothly be applied to these recent climate change and socio-economic phenomena. However, this capability approach framework can guide empirical research on these bounded issues.
