The Capability Approach and the Agency / Structure Discussion in Sociology How to Understand Efforts to Combat Social Exclusion?

This paper argues that the Capability Approach of Amartya Sen and Marta Nussbaum can enrich sociology by linking human agency and structure. Finding ways to capture the linkages between agency and structure (or alternatively; between micro and macro) remains a never ending story in sociology, despite efforts by some of the sharpest minds in the discipline. Proposed ways of capturing the linkages often turn out to be biased towards agency or structure, leaving the contours of the other vague and indeterminate. Alternatively, the proposed solutions are in practice blending or fusing structure and agency into one. The Capability Approach is frequently perceived as being individualistic, i.e. only concerned about the individual’s effective freedom to live the life he or she has reasons to value and desiring to live. Sen do, however, emphasise that people’s possibilities to convert given opportunities or resources into desired functionings do not lonely depend on individual characteristics (e.g. having a physical or mental impairment) but also on the structures (e.g. of a physical, social or attitudinal nature) that people face or within which they find themselves. The paper clarifies how the Capability Approach can contribute to a better understanding of factors hampering or facilitating human agency – both individual and collective – and the processes reproducing or transforming the structures people face. As case the paper discusses the efforts of persons with disabilities to combat exclusion and achieve full participation in society on an equal basis with others.