Routledge Handbook of Indigenous Wellbeing

Christopher Fleming, Matthew Manning, Christopher Fleming, Matthew Manning

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351051248
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Economics

The Routledge Handbook of Indigenous Wellbeing consists of five themes, namely, physical, social and emotional, economic, cultural and spiritual, and subjective wellbeing. It fills a substantial gap in the current literature on the wellbeing of Indigenous people and communities around the world.

This handbook sheds new light on understanding Indigenous wellbeing and its determinants, and aids in the development and implementation of more appropriate policies, as better evidence-informed policymaking will lead to better outcomes for Indigenous populations.

This book provides a reliable and convenient source of information for policymakers, academics and students, and allows readers to make informed decisions regarding the wellbeing of Indigenous populations. It is also a useful resource for non- government organizations to gain insight into relevant global factors for the development of stronger and more effective international policies to improve the lives of Indigenous communities.

1

The complexity of measuring Indigenous wellbeing

Matthew Manning and Christopher Fleming

Improving the lives of Indigenous people irrespective of location is one of our most important priorities. Moreover, working toward reducing the gap between non-Indigenous and Indigenous people across all domains of life is critical. This includes domains related to Indigenous peoples’ physical, social and emotional, economic, cultural and spiritual, and subjective wellbeing. Also important is ensuring that we provide Indigenous children with a healthy start to life that will give them the best chance of success in school and future employment opportunities.

So, what do we mean by wellbeing in this book? Wellbeing, sometimes referred to as wellness, describes the condition of an individual or group. It includes choices and activities aimed at achieving physical vitality, mental alacrity, social satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment, and personal fulfilment. We understand a high level of wellbeing to mean that in some sense the individual’s or group’s condition is positive.

Wellbeing has diverse and interconnected dimensions that extend beyond the traditional definition of health; such diversity must be captured and understood before substantive and sustainable choices and change can be made. However, it is important to recognize that one group’s conceptualization of the dimensions of wellbeing and their respective indicators may be different from another’s, and as such, a ‘one size fits all’ approach will be limited. A useful first step is to disaggregate wellbeing into a range of domains and go to those who have substantive expertise and knowledge within those domains. These experts can then refine the definition of these domains within particular contexts, and inform us of how best to measure wellbeing within this domain, what the evidence tells us about currents states and trends, and offer some suggestions of how wellbeing can be improved. That is the goal of this handbook.

By no means do we claim that this handbook will represent all Indigenous populations, or provide definitive solutions to all of the injustices or inequities that Indigenous people have experienced and continue to face. Rather, our goals are more modest. When we initially spoke with numerous Indigenous people and Indigenous researchers from around the world about this book, support was incredibly strong. They assisted us in shaping our goals and the best way of achieving them. The consensus was that we provide an opportunity for those researchers, many of whom are Indigenous or have worked and lived within Indigenous communities, to share their unique knowledge and the lessons they have learnt over the years. But importantly, not to do this in isolation – hence a handbook. Very few individuals disagreed with the domain classifications we proposed. Rather, they helped us shape the domains so they – to the best of our ability – drill down to what aspects of an individual’s life matter and in a context that truly represents the communities they describe. Of course, there will always be those who vehemently disagree with the choices we made. But, in spite of their disagreement we pushed on with the knowledge that our intentions are good and we did all we could to be informed by the majority on how we best describe the wellbeing of Indigenous people from various parts of the world. This is not the end: we hope in the future to bring together more research from other Indigenous populations around the world in order to get a greater understanding of how all Indigenous people fare and what governments can do to make real sustainable change.

Why the handbook

Policies, programmes and initiatives aimed at improving the lives of Indigenous peoples and communities must be informed by current evidence regarding the physical, social and emotional, economic, cultural and spiritual, and subjective domains of wellbeing. Moreover, Indigenous policy must incorporate an understanding of factors central to Indigenous peoples’ concept of wellbeing. With a clearer understanding of Indigenous wellbeing and its determinants, more appropriate policy can be developed and implemented. Ultimately, evidence-informed policymaking will lead to better outcomes for Indigenous populations.

Currently there is no readily accessible source of information that identifies and discusses the important factors that are relevant to the wellbeing of various Indigenous cultures. There is also no source of information that appreciates the diversity of Indigenous cultures around the world. The objective of this handbook, therefore, is to fill a substantial gap in the current literature on the wellbeing of Indigenous peoples and communities across the world. The handbook provides a reliable and convenient source of information for policymakers, academics and students. This will allow readers to make informed choices when making decisions regarding the wellbeing of Indigenous populations. The handbook will also assist non-government organizations such as the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to gain a global perspective of factors that are relevant to the development of stronger and more effective international policy aimed at improving the lives of Indigenous communities. In addition, this handbook will also assist the United Nations (UN) Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to achieve its objective of providing expert advice and recommendations on Indigenous issues to the UN Economic and Social Council, as well as to programmes, funds and agencies of the UN.

Handbook structure

The handbook contains twenty-four substantive chapters, encompassing six regions (Europe and the Circumpolar North, North America, South and Central America, Africa, Asia/Pacific and Oceania) and structured around five domains: physical wellbeing (Chapters 3–8); social and emotional wellbeing (Chapters 9–12); economic wellbeing (Chapters 13–18); cultural and spiritual wellbeing (Chapters 19–22) and subjective wellbeing (Chapters 23–26).

2

Understanding wellbeing

Matthew Manning and Christopher Fleming

The importance of wellbeing

The concept of ‘wellbeing’ underpins our institutions of morality, politics, law and economics. Theologians and philosophers continue to inquire how best to understand wellbeing, its measurement, and its place in moral and political thought. In more recent times, scholars from areas as diverse as economics, anthropology, sociology and psychology have focused their attention on what it means to live well, with many earlier preconceptions being challenged.

The Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has led the way with regards to instilling the importance of the measurement of wellbeing as a policy instrument. For example, following the second OECD World Forum in 2007, the Istanbul Declaration was ratified between the OECD, the European Commission, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the United Nations, the UN Development Programme and the World Bank. The aim of the declaration was to reaffirm a commitment to accurately measuring – across all relevant dimensions – the progress of societies so as to improve policy and enhance democracy and citizens’ wellbeing (OECD, 2007).

Alongside the OECD’s agenda, a vast and growing body of literature has developed with the explicit aim of developing and empirically validating alternative measures of the standard of living using data collection frameworks and national surveys (Pink, Taylor, & Wetzler, 2014; Stiglitz, Sen, & Fitoussi, 2009). Examples of such surveys include the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017) and the Aboriginal Peoples Survey Canada (Statistics Canada, 2017). The aim of such highly specific surveys is an attempt to expel our reliance on indicators of societal development that may be flawed – a movement that is occurring in both developed and developing countries (Bache & Reardon, 2016). As highlighted by Stiglitz et al. (2009), national level statistics that reflect societal progress need, first, to reflect on the ways in which progress is measured. Such a statement is part of the wave of movement questioning the ability of measures such as GDP per capita to accurately reflect individual and societal wellbeing.

The recognized importance of wellbeing, which gained momentum from the 1970s, underpins the policy agenda in most countries, which has, in turn, led to a proliferation of research efforts toward measuring wellbeing. However, in order to meaningfully implant a notion of wellbeing into policy, one must first gain a deep understanding of the concept of wellbeing from all perspectives, its measurement – both quantitatively and qualitatively – and the tools used to evaluate and compare. As stated by Sen (1987b), the necessary tasks include deciding on “what are the objects [and] how valuable are they?” (p. 4). Although these questions appear simple, the answers are dependent upon how wellbeing is conceptualized by an individual and the theory that one subscribes.

Theories of wellbeing

Theories of wellbeing traditionally fall into three categories, which in part mirror long established divisions between contrasting schools of thought in normative ethics. These theories are complex and require significant discussion to fully comprehend their meaning. Such an exercise, however, is not the purpose of this chapter. Rather, the paragraphs that follow introduce the main schools of thought, providing the reader with links to writings that fully unpack these theories.

Hedonistic theories of wellbeing

Hedonistic theories focus on the intrinsic value of certain psychological states, highlighting that what is good for a person overall is the greatest ‘achievable’ balance in terms of the calculus of pleasure over pain (Crisp, 2006). On the other hand, desire-satisfaction theories propose that wellbeing reflects the satisfaction of a person’s desires or preferences (Olsaretti & Arneson, 2006). In short, both hedonistic and desire-satisfaction theories of wellbeing are founded on the utilitarian ethical tradition, and together dominate the evaluative foundations of contemporary research on this topic.

Objective list theories of wellbeing

Objective list theories of wellbeing propose that certain objective conditions define personal wellbeing, and that these conditions do not necessarily reject the inclusion of happiness and desire satisfaction. Objective list theories typically owe their evaluative origins to varieties of deontology (i.e. the science of the determination of duties within social circumstances or the theory of moral norms), and especially to the natural law and human rights traditions in moral and political philosophy (Finnis, 2011). Contemporary virtue ethical accounts of wellbeing which trace their origins to Aristotelian ethics also establish an objective list rather than a hedonistic or desire-satisfaction theory (Hursthouse, 1999).

The capabilities approach

More recently an approach to understanding individual wellbeing has emerged that has moved the discussion away from the traditional theoretical presumption of foundational monism, towards a more flexible pluralist approach. The most prominent and philosophically sophisticated of pluralist accounts is the freedom-based ‘capabilities’ approach (Nussbaum, 2000; Sen, 1985, 1987a, 1992, 1999a, 1999b, 2008).

The approach concerns the distinction between capabilities and functionings. Sen (1999b) refers to functionings as achievements and capabilities – the ability to achieve – which is inextricably linked to freedom and the real opportunities to live the life one has reason to value. Advocates of this approach call for an evaluative space to understand an individual’s command of their resources, their ability and freedom to achieve wellbeing and the structures that promote or constrain their individual pursuit of wellbeing (Alkire, 2002, 2015; Clark, 2005; Deneulin, 2008; Robeyns, 2005; Stewart, 2005). It is important to note that this approach, however, does not advocate the privileging of objective or subjective measures. Here, Sen (2004) chooses not to recommend a list of functionings and capabilities to which society should ascribe. Rather, he chooses to leave that process to be dependent on context and reason, favouring deliberative participation. Nussbaum (2000), on the other hand, provides a list of ten central human capabilities (yet to be challenged; Clark, 2005) – these include life expectancy, bodily health, bodily integrity, sense imagination and thought, emotions, practical reason, affiliation, other species, play and control over the environment – as substantive capabilities, which she subscribes as being universally critical dimensions of wellbeing. Irrespective of list or no list, the UNDP Human Development reports and associated Human Develo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• 1 The complexity of measuring Indigenous wellbeing
• 2 Understanding wellbeing
• Part I Physical wellbeing
• Part II Social and emotional wellbeing
• Part III Economic wellbeing
• Part IV Cultural and spiritual wellbeing
• Part V Subjective wellbeing
• 27 Indigenous wellbeing and future challenges
• Index