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Taking a Well-being Approach to Fisheries Research: Insights from a Sri Lankan Fishing Village and Relevance for Sustainable Fisheries

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Methodological Challenges and New Approaches to Research in International Development

Abstract

Over the last decade, the concept of well-being has experienced a surge of interest in international development debate about how it might offer a holistic, people-centred, and perhaps more meaningful interpretation of development and progress, which moves us beyond narrow economic measures such as gross domestic product (GDP) (Gough and McGregor 2007; White 2010; NEF 2011). Bridging this interest with environmental concerns, debates have expanded to question how well-being might be relevant, and applicable, to natural resource management and environmental sustainability (Duraiappah 2004; Armitage et al. 2012). In 2005, the influential series of reports which formed the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment focussed international attention on the ways in which human well-being is dependent upon a functioning and productive natural environment, bringing the term “well-being” to the centre of sustainability debates. However, the reports also recognized that there is a significant gap in understanding around how ecosystem services, defined as the benefits derived from the environment (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005), relate to the experience of human well-being, and how that experience itself might be understood (Carpenter et al. 2006, 2009).

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Authors
  1. Sarah Coulthard
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  2. Lahiru Sandaruwan
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  3. Nasheera Paranamana
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  4. Dilanthi Koralgama
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of International Development, University of East Anglia, UK

    Laura Camfield (Senior Lecturer) (Senior Lecturer)

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© 2014 Sarah Coulthard, Lahiru Sandaruwan, Nasheera Paranamana and Dilanthi Koralgama

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Coulthard, S., Sandaruwan, L., Paranamana, N., Koralgama, D. (2014). Taking a Well-being Approach to Fisheries Research: Insights from a Sri Lankan Fishing Village and Relevance for Sustainable Fisheries. In: Camfield, L. (eds) Methodological Challenges and New Approaches to Research in International Development. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137293626_5

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