Abstract
The capable self, drawing on the capability perspective, first developed by Amartya Sen (Commodities and capabilities. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1999a; Development as freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999b) and further elaborated by Martha Nussbaum (Creating capabilities: The human development approach, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 2010) is the subject of this chapter. Sen’s basic framework of capabilities is outlined in relation to the analytical framework of resistance documented above; Nussbaum’s development of a list of “Central capabilities” is reviewed alongside the subsequent debates about whether such a list could ever be definitive. We explore what it means to be a capable self, and, to discuss the practice of selfwork, we listen and learn from musician Thelma Plum and her story of Better in Blak.
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Allan, J., Harwood, V. (2022). The Capable Self. In: On the Self: Discourses of Mental Health and Education. The Language of Mental Health. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10996-6_7
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