Abstract
This paper explores what insights can be drawn from critical theory to enrich and strengthen Sen’s capability approach in relation to technology and human development. The two theories share some important commonalities: both are concerned with the pursuit of “a good life”; both are normative theories rooted in ethics and meant to make a difference, and both are interested in democracy. The paper provides a brief overview of both schools of thought and their applications to technology and human development. Three areas are identified where critical theory can make a contribution to the capability approach: conceptually, by providing a critical account of individual agency and enriching the concept of technology beyond the simplistic notion of commodities; methodologically, by sensitising towards reification and hegemony of scientific tools, and, finally, by emphasising reflexivity of researchers.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alkire, S. (2002). Valuing freedom: Sen’s capability approach and poverty reduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Anand, P., Santos, C., & Smith, R. (2007). The measurement of capabilities (No. 67). Open Discussion Papers in Economics. Open University.
Bailur, S. (2007).The challenges of community participation in rural information systems projects. Paper presented at the IFIP 9.4 Working Group on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries: Taking Stock of E-development, Sao Paulo.
Basden, A. (2002). The critical theory of Herman Dooyeweerd? Journal of Information Technology, 17, 257–269.
Brey, P. (2000). Disclosive computer ethics: Exposure and evaluation of embedded normativity in computer technology. In CEPE2000 computer ethics: Philosophical enquiry. Presented at the CEPE2000 Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry, Dartmouth College.
Brey, P. (2008). The technological construction of social power. Social Epistemology, 22(1), 71–95.
Brooke, C. (2002). What does it mean to be ‘critical’ in IS research? Journal of Information Technology, 17, 49–57.
Brooke, C. (Ed.). (2009). Critical management perspectives on information systems (1st ed.). Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann.
Cecez-Kecmanovic, D. (2005). Basic assumptions of the critical research perspectives in information systems. In D. Howcroft & E. M. Trauth (Eds.), Handbook of critical information systems research: Theory and application (pp. 19–46). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Clark, D. A. (2006). Capability approach. In D. A. Clark (Ed.), The Elgar companion to development studies (pp. 32–45). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Cooke, B., & Kothari, U. (Eds.). (2001). Participation: The new tyranny? London: Zed Books.
Corbridge, S. (2002). Development as freedom: The spaces of Amartya Sen. Progress in Development Studies, 2(3), 183–217.
Crocker, D. A. (2008). Ethics of global development: Agency, capability, and deliberative democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cukier, W., Ngwenyama, O., Bauer, R., & Middleton, C. (2009). A critical analysis of media discourse on information technology: Preliminary results of a proposed method for critical discourse analysis. Information Systems Journal, 19(2), 175–196.
Deneulin, S. (2006). “Necessary thickening”: Ricoeur’s ethic of justice as a complement to Sen’s capability approach. In S. Deneulin, M. Nebel, & N. Sagovsky (Eds.), Transforming unjust structures: The capability approach. Dordrecht: Springer.
Deneulin, S., Nebel, M., & Sagovsky, N. (Eds.). (2006). Transforming unjust structures: The capability approach. Dordrecht: Springer.
Devereux, S. (2001). Sen’s entitlement approach: Critiques and counter-critiques. Oxford Development Studies, 29(3), 245–263.
Doolin, B., & McLeod, L. (2005). Towards critical interpretivism in IS research. In D. Howcroft & E. Trauth (Eds.), Handbook of critical information systems research: Theory and application (pp. 244–271). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Evans, P. (2002). Collective capabilities, culture, and Amartya Sen’s development as freedom. Studies in Comparative International Development, 37(2), 54–60.
Falconer, D. (2008). A demographic and content survey of critical research in information systems for the period 2001–2005. Communications of AIS, 2008(22), 547–568.
Feenberg, A. (1993). Critical theory of technology (New ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Feenberg, A. (1999). Questioning technology (1st ed.). London: Routledge.
Feenberg, A. (2004). Looking backward, looking forward. In D. Tabachnick & T. Koivukoski (Eds.), Globalisation, technology, and philosophy (pp. 93–105). New York: State University of New York Press.
Feenberg, A. (2008a). From critical theory of technology to the rational critique of rationality. Social Epistemology, 22(1), 5–28.
Feenberg, A. (2008b). Comments. Social Epistemology, 22(1), 119–124.
Feldman, S. (2010). Social development, capabilities, and the contradictions of (capitalist) development. In S. L. Esquith & F. Gifford (Eds.), Capabilities, power, and institutions: Toward a more critical development ethics. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. London: Penguin Books.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings (1972–1977). In C. Gordon (Ed.), London: Harvester.
Freeden, M. (2003). Ideology: A very short introduction. Very short introductions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Garai, A., & Shadrach, B. (2006). Taking ICT to every Indian village: Opportunities and challenges. One World South Asia.
Gasper, D. (2007). What is the capability approach? Its core, rationale, partners and dangers. The Journal of Social Economics, 36, 335–359.
Gigler, B. (2004). Including the excluded: Can ICTs empower poor communities? Towards an alternative evaluation framework based on the capacity approach. In 4th International conference on the capability approach, September 5–7, 2004. Pavia, Italy: University of Pavia.
Gouldner, A. W. (1976). The dialectic of ideology and technology: The origins, grammar and future of ideology. Critical social studies. London: Macmillan.
Greenhill, A., & Wilson, M. (2006). Haven or hell? Telework, flexibility and family in the e-society: A Marxist analysis. European Journal of Information Systems, 15(4), 379–388.
Harvey, L. (1990). Critical social research. London: Unwin Hyman.
Hawkes, D. (2003). Ideology. The new critical idiom (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Howcroft, D., & Trauth, E. (2005). Handbook of critical information systems research: Theory and application. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Howcroft, D., & Trauth, E. M. (2008). The implications of a critical agenda in gender and IS research. Information Systems Journal, 18(2), 185–202.
Introna, L. D. (2005). Disclosive ethics and information technology: Disclosing facial recognition systems. Ethics and Information Technology, 7(2), 75–86.
Jackson, P., Gharavi, H., & Klobas, J. (2006). Technologies of the self: Virtual work and the inner panopticon. Information Technology and People, 19(3), 219–243.
Johnstone, J. (2007). Technology as empowerment: A capability approach to computer ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 9, 73–87.
Kincheloe, J. L., & McLaren, P. (2005). Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 305–342). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Klein, H. K. (2009). Critical social IS research today: A reflection of past accomplishments and current challenges. In C. Brooke (Ed.), Critical management perspectives on information systems (pp. 249–272). Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann.
Kleine, D. (2009). ICT4 what?—using the choice framework to operationalise the capability approach to development. In Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on information and communication technologies and development (Doha, Qatar, April 17–19, 2009) (pp. 108–117). Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press.
Kothari, U. (2001). Power, knowledge and social control in participatory development. In B. Cooke & U. Kothari (Eds.), Participation: The new tyranny? (pp. 139–152). London: Zed Books.
Kvasny, L., & Richardson, H. (2006). Critical research in information systems: Looking forward, looking back. Information Technology and People, 19(3), 196–202.
Madon, S. (2004). Evaluating the developmental impact of E-governance initiatives: An exploratory framework. Electronic Journal of Information System in Developing Countries, 20(5), 1–13.
Marcuse, H. (2002). One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society (1st ed.). London: Routledge.
Mayasandra, R., Pan, S. L., & Myers, M. D. (2006). Viewing information technology outsourcing organisations through a postcolonial lens. In E. Trauth, D. Howcroft, T. Butler, B. Fitzgerald, & J. DeGross (Eds.), Social inclusion, societal and organisational implications for information systems (pp. 381–396). Berlin: Springer.
McAulay, L., Doherty, N., & Keval, N. (2002). The stakeholder dimension in information systems evaluation. Journal of Information Technology, 17(4), 241–255.
McGrath, K. (2005). Doing critical research in information systems: A case of theory and practice not informing each other. Information Systems Journal, 15(2), 85–101.
McLellan, D. (1995). Ideology. Concepts in the social sciences (2nd ed.). Buckingham: Open University Press.
Navarro, V. (2000). Development and quality of life: A critique of Amartya Sen’s development as freedom. International Journal of Health Services, 30(4), 661–674.
Nussbaum, M. C. (2000). Women and human development: The capabilities approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Orlikowski, W. J., & Baroudi, J. J. (1991). Studying information technology in organisations: Research approaches and assumptions. Information Systems Research, 2(1), 1–28.
Radder, H. (2008). Critical philosophy of technology: The basic issues. Social Epistemology, 22(1), 51–70.
Richardson, H., & Robinson, B. (2007). The mysterious case of the missing paradigm: A review of critical information systems research 1991–2001. Information Systems Journal, 17(3), 251–270.
Robeyns, I. (2002). Gender inequality: A capability perspective. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Cambridge University, Cambridge.
Robeyns, I. (2005). The capability approach: A theoretical survey. Journal of Human Development, 6(1), 93–114.
Robeyns, I. (2006). The capability approach in practice. The Journal of Political Philosophy, 4(3), 351–376.
Robeyns, I. (2008). Sen’s capability approach and feminist concerns. In The capability approach: Concepts, measures and applications (pp. 82–104). Cambridge University Press.
Saravanamuthu, K. (2002). Information technology and ideology. Journal of Information Technology, 17, 79–87.
Schot, J., & Rip, A. (1996). The past and future of constructive technology assessment. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 54(2–3), 251–268.
Sen, A. (Ed.). (1980). Equality of what? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sen, A. (1982). Choice, welfare and measurement. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Sen, A. (1984). Resources, values and development. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Sen, A. (1985a). Commodities and capabilities. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Sen, A. (1985b). Well-being, agency and freedom. The Journal of Philosophy, LXXXII(4), 169–221.
Sen, A. (1987). The standard of living. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sen, A. (1990a). Gender and cooperative conflict. In I. Tinker (Ed.), Persistent inequalities (pp. 123–149). New York and Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Sen, A. (1990b). Justice: Means versus freedoms. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 19(2), 111–121.
Sen, A. (1992). Inequality reexamined. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sen, A. (1993). Capability and well-being. In M. Nussbaum & A. Sen (Eds.), The quality of life. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. New York: Knopf.
Sen, A. (2006). Identity and violence: The illusion of destiny. New York: Penguin Books.
Stahl, B. C. (2006). Emancipation in cross-cultural IS research: The fine line between relativism and dictatorship of the intellectual. Ethics and Information Technology, 8(3), 97–108.
Stahl, B. (2008a). Information systems: Critical perspectives (Routledge studies in organisation and systems). Routledge.
Stahl, B. C. (2008b). The ethical nature of critical research in information systems. Information Systems Journal, 18(2), 137–163.
Stewart, K. J., & Gosain, S. (2006). The impact of ideology on effectiveness in open source software development teams. MIS Quarterly, 30(2), 291–314.
Thrift, N. J. (2005). Knowing capitalism. London: SAGE.
van den Hoven, J. (2008). Moral methodology and information technology. In K. Himma & H. Tavani (Eds.), The handbook of information and computer ethics (pp. 49–68). Chichester: WileyBlackwell.
Walsham, G. (2001). Making a world of difference: IT in a global context. Chichester: Wiley.
Wastell, D. G. (1996). The fetish of technique: Methodology as a social defence. Information Systems Journal, 6(1), 25–40.
Wresch, W. (2009). Progress on the global digital divide: An ethical perspective based on Amartya Sen’s capabilities model. Ethics and Information Technology, 11(4), 255–263.
Zheng, Y. (2009). Different spaces for e-development: What can we learn from the capability approach. Information Technology for Development, 15(2), 66–82.
Zheng, Y., & Walsham, G. (2008). Inequality of what? Social exclusion in the e-society as capability deprivation. Information Technology and People, 21(3), 222–243.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
An earlier version of this paper was accepted as a poster by the ICTD 2010 conference, London.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zheng, Y., Stahl, B.C. Technology, capabilities and critical perspectives: what can critical theory contribute to Sen’s capability approach?. Ethics Inf Technol 13, 69–80 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-011-9264-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-011-9264-8