activists would be unable to succeed in implementing programmes without the other aspects of capitalist strategies. Activists situated challenges to their agency, and that of their beneficiaries, in the failure of the institutional and political institutional infrastructures rather than class-based struggles. The response to this perspective was to adopt what can be characterised as strategies rather than “power to” “power programmes and campaigns. over” The argument about the deployment of human rights in this category can be developed most fruitfully not by considering whether expressed activists’ political aspirations. Rather, it is suggested here that this thesis feeds into the work on human development by unpacking some aspects of the situated contexts which influence decisions on the ground. perceptions of their Activists’ ability to deploy human rights and human rights-based development organisations’ are central to understanding this influence. This thesis contends that activists adopted strategies that focused on a pragmatic approach, enhancing “power to” local community values, capabilities and freedoms within a framework that emphasised group rights. The situated context of what was articulated as legal and institutional infrastructural failures influenced how the framework was deployed to enhance standards of living. beneficiaries’ Sen (1999) developed the human development paradigm as a critique of the economic growth model. Development economists became increasingly convinced that market forces were failing to provide a trickle-down effect to end poverty. Sen was instrumental in conceiving a human development approach based on practical reasoning in pursuit of identifying the most effective approaches to reducing the most egregious injustices arising from abject poverty. (1999) human development approach focused on enhancing human Sen’s capabilities and freedoms and achieving decent standards of living, rather than pursuing a narrower objective of economic growth. work, however, is Sen’s directed at emancipating people so that they can freely pursue their own choices informed by their own values. It was mentioned earlier in the chapter that it is unclear from this project whether activists in the two case studies were aware of the human development orientation. It is, however, arguably a paradigm that best describes the orientation of activists in this category who focused on their visions to
activists would be unable to succeed in implementing programmes without the other aspects of capitalist strategies. Activists situated challenges to their agency, and that of their beneficiaries, in the failure of the institutional and political institutional infrastructures rather than class-based struggles. The response to this perspective was to adopt what can be characterised as “power to” strategies rather than “power over” programmes and campaigns. The argument about the deployment of human rights in this category can be developed most fruitfully not by considering whether activists’ expressed political aspirations. Rather, it is suggested here that this thesis feeds into the work on human development by unpacking some aspects of the situated contexts which influence decisions on the ground. Activists’ perceptions of their organisations’ ability to deploy human rights and human rights-based development are central to understanding this influence. This thesis contends that activists adopted “power to” strategies that focused on a pragmatic approach, enhancing local community values, capabilities and freedoms within a framework that emphasised group rights. The situated context of what was articulated as legal and institutional infrastructural failures influenced how the framework was deployed to enhance beneficiaries’ standards of living. Sen (1999) developed the human development paradigm as a critique of the economic growth model. Development economists became increasingly convinced that market forces were failing to provide a trickle-down effect to end poverty. Sen was instrumental in conceiving a human development approach based on practical reasoning in pursuit of identifying the most effective approaches to reducing the most egregious injustices arising from abject poverty. Sen’s (1999) human development approach focused on enhancing human capabilities and freedoms and achieving decent standards of living, rather than pursuing a narrower objective of economic growth. Sen’s work, however, is directed at emancipating people so that they can freely pursue their own choices informed by their own values. It was mentioned earlier in the chapter that it is unclear from this project whether activists in the two case studies were aware of the human development orientation. It is, however, arguably a paradigm that best describes the orientation of activists in this category who focused on their visions to
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