Abstract
This chapter is about designing responsible technological product innovations for the multidimensional poor people in developing countries, to improve their livelihoods and make available to them better products. Attention for this so-called ‘design for development’ has already been raised in the 1970s. However, despite several design efforts for the poor, significant efforts are still required. To advance socially responsible design, we suggest the integration of Sen’s capability approach into the product design process. This approach focuses on enhancing people’s real opportunities, their capabilities. In this paper we take a capability perspective towards a technological product designed for and implemented in rural India, to explore the potential, the advantages and disadvantages of using a capability perspective when designing and innovating for the multidimensional poor. We conclude that the capability approach can offer designers a comprehensive and holistic view which aids them to better understand the context and to better predict the consequences of their product innovations. The approach therefore appears promising to support product designers in their efforts to influence the change that the multidimensional poor need in their societies and in their lives.
Keywords
- Product Innovation
- United Nations Development Program
- Capability Approach
- Multidimensional Poverty Index
- Adaptive Preference
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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- 1.
This manual of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, provides guidelines by which comparable innovation indicators can be developed in OECD countries. Since 2005 non-technological innovation, and linkages between different innovation types are taken into account.
- 2.
By e.g. Archer (1984), Pahl et al. (1984), March (1984), Wheelwright and Clark (1992), Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI guideline 2221, 1993), Roozenburg and Eekels (1995), Buijs (2003), Ulrich and Eppinger (2004), Buijs and Valkenburg (2005), Unger and Eppinger (2010), Meinel and Leifer (2011) among others.
- 3.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA (D-Lab), Stanford university in the USA (partner in D-Rev), the Institute of Design from IIT Chicago in the USA, Aalto University in Finland (BoP Network), University of Colorado-Boulder (Engineering for Developing Communities (EDC) program), Ateneo School of Government, Philippines (Science and Technology Innovations for the Base of the Pyramid in Southeast Asia program), among others.
- 4.
According to Donaldson (2006), the most prominent Non-Governmental Organizations designing products for less industrialized economies are: Intermediate Technology Development Group, KickStart (formerly ApproTEC), International Development Enterprises, TechnoServe, and EnterpriseWorks Worldwide.
- 5.
Among others, the BoP Protocol 2nd Edition of Simanis and Hart (http://www.bop-protocol.org, accessed January 2011), the Market Creation Toolbox of the BoP Learning Lab (2011, http://www.boplearninglab.dk, accessed February 2012), and the Design for Sustainability (D4S) manual of the United Nations Environment Program in collaboration with TUDelft (http://www.d4s-de.org, accessed January 2011). The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) wrote a report on engineering solutions for the BoP which includes four critical business strategies, but also five design principles for engineers (https://www.engineeringforchange.org, accessed January 2011).
- 6.
Among others, Frog’s ‘Collective Action Toolkit’ (CAT), which emerged from frog’s collaboration with Nike Foundation/Girl Effect (http://www.frogdesign.com, accessed November 2012). And IDEO developed the ‘Human Centered Design Toolkit’ (HCD) in 2009, Developed after a request of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (http://www.ideo.com, accessed January 2011).
- 7.
For each reeler, data are kept to capture the performance of each reeler and to be able to calculate the reeler’s payment. These data concern the amount of days the reeler works, how many spindles she uses, the amount of cocoons she uses per day, the amount of yarn she reels, and the quality of the reeled yarn. These data are entered in a computer programme called Softyarn.
- 8.
The warp of a fabric requires twisted yarn for its strength, but untwisted yarn can be used for the weft of a fabric to give it a softer feel.
- 9.
Obtained from email-contact with Mr. M. Ray, Director of MASUTA Producer’s Company Ltd.
- 10.
The information is gathered through email-contact with Mr. M. Ray, MASUTA’s director who is also in close contact with the implementing non-governmental organization PRADAN.
- 11.
This information is obtained from field staff of PRADAN in 2006, in Deoghar District, Jharkhand State, India.
- 12.
It must be noted that, if a woman does not have sufficient skills for the reeling activity, PRADAN will engage her in another livelihood activity.
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Acknowledgements
This research has been made possible by a grant from NWO (the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). We would also like to thank Ilse Oosterlaken (who is working on the same research project) for critically reflecting on the content of this chapter and for exchanging thoughts on several issues. This chapter has greatly benefited from the many discussions with her.
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Appendix A: Table Containing Needs Derived from Alkire’s Lists
Appendix A: Table Containing Needs Derived from Alkire’s Lists
Classified according to the seven aspects of well-being by Williamson and Robinson (2006)
Aspect of well-being | Being or doing |
---|---|
Biological | Physical survival |
Being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length | |
Nutrition | |
To be adequately nourished | |
Health | |
Being able to have good bodily and mental health | |
Reproduction | |
Being able to have good reproductive health | |
Healthcare | |
Being able to receive good healthcare | |
Shelter | |
Having adequate shelter | |
Sanitation | |
Having adequate water, sanitation and hygiene | |
Rest and exercise | |
Having adequate periodic rest, and adequate physical activity | |
Physical security | |
To be secure against harassment, pain, anxiety and violent assault, and being able to have pleasurable experiences, safety, harmony and stability | |
Mental | Education |
Being able to receive education, to experience and appreciate beauty, and to develop curiosity, learning, and understanding | |
Practical reason | |
Being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one’s life | |
Identity and individuality | |
Having a sense of the aspects that makes one unique | |
Morality | |
A sense of goodness, righteousness, duty, and obligation | |
Freedom of sexual activity | |
Having the opportunities for sexual satisfaction and for choice in matters of reproduction | |
Freedom of movement and residence | |
Being able to move freely from place to place, and to reside where one wants | |
Meaningful work | |
Being able to choose one’s work, and to work as a human, to exercise practical reason, and to enter into meaningful relationships of mutual recognition with other workers | |
Leisure | |
Being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities | |
Political liberty | |
Having the right of political participation, protections of free speech and association | |
Emotional | Freedom of mind |
Having the freedom of thought, imagination, opinion | |
Freedom of experiencing and expressing emotions | |
Having the freedom to experience emotions and express oneself, not having one’s emotional development blighted by fear and anxiety | |
Happiness | |
Being able to lead a happy, enjoyable life | |
Love, longing, and grieve | |
Being able to experience love, longing and grieve, and being able to give love and affection | |
Worry-free | |
Being able to live a prosperous life, without worries and with confidence in the future | |
Self-respect | |
Being able to have the social bases of self-respect and non-humiliation | |
Aspirations and self-actualization | |
Being able to express and activate all one’s aspirations and capacities | |
Achievement | |
Being able to accomplish one’s aspirations, to demonstrate competence and making a lasting contribution | |
Equality | |
Being able to be treated as a dignified being whose worth is equal to that of others | |
Recognition | |
Being recognized and having status | |
Having power | |
Having social status and prestige, and having control or a dominant position within the household and the more general social system (includes decision-responsibility) | |
Acceptance and self-adjustment | |
Being able to adjust to circumstances | |
Self-acceptance | |
Being able to accept oneself and one’s circumstances | |
Being able to hold property/to have sufficient assets, control over material environment | |
Services | |
Having access to services concerning i.e. mobility and media services | |
Housing | |
Being able to own a house | |
Economic security | |
Being economically secure at present and in the future | |
Settings of interaction | |
Having places to meet others for educational, spiritual or creative purposes | |
Material | Goods |
Social | Significant relationships |
Being able to have attachments to people and things outside ourselves, to recognize and show concern for other humans, to engage in various forms of social interaction; to be able to imagine the situation of another | |
Family | |
Being able to care for, bring up, marry & settle children | |
Friends | |
Being able to form friendships and to enjoy companionship | |
Community | |
Being able to live in and participate in a community | |
Other species | |
Being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature | |
Social security | |
Living in an open, just, and secure environment | |
Privacy | |
Being able to seclude oneself or information about oneself | |
Cultural | Cultural identity |
Having respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that one’s culture or religion impose on the individual, and being able to live according to culture | |
Spiritual | Peace of mind |
Being able to find meaning, inner harmony and inner peace | |
A spiritual life | |
Being able to find meaning and value, and being free to believe in a greater than human source |
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Mink, A., Parmar, V.S., Kandachar, P.V. (2014). Responsible Design and Product Innovation from a Capability Perspective. In: van den Hoven, J., Doorn, N., Swierstra, T., Koops, BJ., Romijn, H. (eds) Responsible Innovation 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8956-1_8
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