RESOURCES, LIVELIHOODS AND WELLBEING
During the 1980s and 1990s there were a number of notable advances in
research frameworks and methodologies for understanding the actual lives
that people in developing countries live. The term ‘actual lives’ refers to the
desire to research people’s actual choices and actions in relation to possible
opportunities (see Alkire 2007); it also signals a departure from discussions
of poor people that abstract them almost completely out of the picture. A
substantial body of work in development studies has moved from narrowly
conceived income ‘poverty’ analyses; to understanding how ‘livelihoods’ are
constructed; and then on to still wider notions of ‘resource strategies’, which
seek to take better account of the social and cultural structures within which
these are located. These approaches can make a useful contribution to the
emerging discussion on a concept of wellbeing.