Sustainable Human Well‐Being

Viewing human well-being from the two perspectives of capabilities and sustainable freedoms, this chapter attempts to interpret capability enhancement in the context of achieving sustainable freedoms for identified social groups. It argues that in the presence of fast growing economies, the ‘resilience and adaptive change approach’ as applied dynamically to social systems and their evolution over time provides one standard against which a listing of capabilities may make a great deal of sense. Expansion of individual capabilities depends on the nature of linkages between the sub-group to which she/he belongs and other parts of the social system. The question this chapter poses is: Could an understanding of the concept of ‘dynamic resilience’ of the social system over successive cycles of development be significant in listing capabilities of individuals and determining which are critical in ensuring that development as freedom is sustainable? This chapter focuses on a study of an aquaculture export initiated development experience, in particular the setting up of multiple indices of well-being for categories of stakeholders in the Indian state of West Bengal to further elucidate and substantiate the above hypothesis. It argues that developing further the links between the capability approach to well-being, in particular its expansion to sustainable freedoms and the ‘resilience network approach’ to social systems, will throw more light on the nature of sustainable well-being.