TY - JOUR
T1 - A sustainable livelihoods framework for the 21st century
AU - Natarajan, Nithya
AU - Newsham, Andrew
AU - Rigg, Jonathan
AU - Suhardiman, Diana
N1 - Funding Information:
We are appreciative of the close engagement of three reviewers with our paper. Their evident knowledge of the subject matter has encouraged us to adjust the tenor and balance of the discussion, making for a stronger paper in the process.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/7
Y1 - 2022/7
N2 - This paper proposes a reformulation of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) fit for the 21st century. The article explores the rise and usage of the original SLF, highlighting how its popularity among development practitioners emerged both from its practical focus, and its depoliticization of wider shifts in the development landscape at the time. Distilling the various critiques that have emerged around the use of the SLF and sustainable livelihoods approaches, the article highlights problems of theory, method, scale, historical conceptualisation, politics, and debates on decolonising knowledge. It further explores two key shifts in the global development landscape that characterise the 21st century, namely the impacts of climate change on rural livelihoods, and the shifts wrought by globalisation, before highlighting the structural and relational turns in critical development literature. In speaking to both historical critiques and more recent debates, we present a SLF for the 21st century, foregrounding a structural, spatially-disaggregated, dynamic and ecologically-coherent approach to framing rural livelihoods. We offer a framework and not an approach, hoping that that our SLF leaves open the possibility for different theoretical traditions to better work with emerging rural livelihoods.
AB - This paper proposes a reformulation of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) fit for the 21st century. The article explores the rise and usage of the original SLF, highlighting how its popularity among development practitioners emerged both from its practical focus, and its depoliticization of wider shifts in the development landscape at the time. Distilling the various critiques that have emerged around the use of the SLF and sustainable livelihoods approaches, the article highlights problems of theory, method, scale, historical conceptualisation, politics, and debates on decolonising knowledge. It further explores two key shifts in the global development landscape that characterise the 21st century, namely the impacts of climate change on rural livelihoods, and the shifts wrought by globalisation, before highlighting the structural and relational turns in critical development literature. In speaking to both historical critiques and more recent debates, we present a SLF for the 21st century, foregrounding a structural, spatially-disaggregated, dynamic and ecologically-coherent approach to framing rural livelihoods. We offer a framework and not an approach, hoping that that our SLF leaves open the possibility for different theoretical traditions to better work with emerging rural livelihoods.
KW - Development
KW - Livelihoods
KW - Relational
KW - Sustainability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85127078612&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.105898
DO - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.105898
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85127078612
SN - 0305-750X
VL - 155
JO - WORLD DEVELOPMENT
JF - WORLD DEVELOPMENT
M1 - 105898
ER -