¿Pueden las artes servir como una estrategia para estimular el desarrollo de capacidades? ¿De qué manera la participación en proyectos de Teatro Aplicado permite a quienes hacen parte de éstos la ampliación de sus libertades? A través del diálogo entre la propuesta teórica de Martha Nussbaum y la experiencia de vida de personas de diversas edades y proveniencias, que tienen en común haber participado de proyectos teatrales, se dará cuenta del efecto que tiene esta práctica en la afirmación de la identidad individual. En un contexto global caracterizado por el individualismo y la competencia, la afirmación de la identidad de quienes han participado de proyectos de Teatro Aplicado se sustenta en el reconocimiento y valoración de los otros. De esta manera, “ser uno mismo desde los zapatos del otro” se constituye como una capacidad que permite generar una idea de “nosotros” que es expresión empírica de los conceptos de “Imaginación Narrativa”, “Ciudadanía Global” y “Afiliación” que la filósofa norteamericana desarrolla desde su enfoque. A través del análisis de los testimonios de los entrevistados y de la identificación de las características específicas de la práctica teatral, se reconocerán los alcances que ésta tiene respecto al cultivo de algunas de las “Capacidades Centrales” que Nussbaum propone, y específicamente, al desarrollo de emociones públicas que puedan contribuir al fortalecimiento de las democracias y al florecimiento de las personas. En consecuencia, a partir del diálogo entre experiencias de vida concretas y las reflexiones teóricas de Nussbaum, se propone una manera de llevar a políticas y programas el Enfoque de las Capacidades, reconociendo en la experimentación y apreciación artística una dimensión fundamental para el Desarrollo Humano.

This thesis provides a moral analysis of micro-regional forces in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, using the framework of the New Regionalism Approach (NRA). It presents an original contribution to the field through the addition of the Ghanaian-Ivoirian case study, as well as a unique application of Martha Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach to the NRA. In an attempt to counter the view that borders in Africa are artificial, arbitrary and the result of colonial imposition, this research employs the Capabilities Approach, providing a narrative of both positive and negative impacts resulting from the opportunity created by borders in West Africa. The way in which the Ghanaian-Ivoirian border is used by individuals in their security strategies in the face of economic deprivation and physical threats represents a positive impact of borders. Conversely, the role of borders in the continued prevalence of human trafficking in West Africa is also questioned in this piece, providing a balanced account of the impact of borders. This research concludes that the Ghanaian-Ivoirian border presents opportunities that can be exploited to both positive and negative ends at the micro-regional level. This interpretation suggests that any complete account of borders in West Africa more broadly ought to employ a moral framework in addition to a multi-levelled scale of analysis.

The Capability Approach was initially developed by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, with the first basic articulation presented in his 1979 ‘Equality of What?’ Tanner Lecture. Since then, the approach has gained a huge amount of attention as a conceptual framework which offers a clear and insightful way to measure well-being and development. Most recently, the approach has been refined and extended by Martha Nussbaum to issues of disability, nationality, and species membership in political philosophy. This project is about the foundations of the capability approach. More specifically, this project asks whether we can, and whether there are good reasons to, strengthen those foundations. The conclusions drawn here are that we ought to think seriously about the way that the capability approach develops as a theory that responds to real world challenges and change. More importantly, this project contends – in light of the challenges of future people and indigenous peoples – that there is good reason to think of new ways to ground the approach. This project takes up this challenge and grounds the approach in a modified version of Tim Mulgan’s approach to well-being. This project demonstrates that this alternative enriches the capability approach by providing us with a way of making sense of important problems, and with options for moving forward. Overall, this project asks important questions about how the capability approach could evolve based on challenges that remain relatively under-explored in the current literature. This project contributes to this literature by demonstrating that we can and ought to strengthen the capability approach and its ability to understand, take on board, and resolve these challenges.

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