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The WeD research programme draws together researchers from social policy, development studies, and psychology, reflecting a range of perspectives on the core concern with human well-being. More specifically, the WeD programme brings together three distinct frameworks in its reflection on universal and local perspectives. These are Doyal and Gough's (1991) formulation of a universal Theory of Human Need; the Resource Profiles Approach developed at the University of Bath; and the World Health Organisation's profile of Quality of Life (WHOQoL). The first year of the WeD programme has been dedicated to conceptual development, reflecting on these and exploring the relations between them. Following the lead of the Peru team, social exclusion has been introduced as an important analytical concern. Doyal and Gough offer a framework for conceptualising the relationship between universal human needs and how these are satisfied in particular contexts. The theory’s initial identification of universal needs as comprising health and autonomy has been revised to include relationship with others, and stress that autonomy is understood in a broad way, as scope for critical agency. The framework will be explored further in different contexts and cultures through the extended fieldwork of the programme. The Resource Profiles Approach classifies the types of resource through which people pursue their wellbeing in terms of material, human, social, cultural, and environmental factors. It is distinctive amongst livelihoods analyses in considering culture as a dimension of resources. For use in the WeD programme it is being developed in two major ways. First, we re-emphasise the importance of considering both social structure and people's agency. Second, rather than drawing strict lines between different types of resource, we are interested in understanding the interplay between them and exploring how each resource has material, relational and symbolic dimensions. The WHO definition of Quality of Life has been highly influential in emphasising the importance of subjective perceptions and how people themselves assess their situations and define their aims and values. Drawing insights from the psychological literature on subjective wellbeing and quality of life, the research will explore how these approaches can add to our understanding of development processes. Employing a range of methodological approaches the WeD programme will seek to reflect local understandings in constructing a new, development related, profile of quality of life.
The WeD research programme runs from October 2002 to September 2007. The first year has been dedicated to conceptual development and the preparation of national studies for each of the four countries, based on analysis of secondary data. This is followed by the Grounding and Piloting Phase, which involves drawing up a community profile and the groundwork for developing a culturally sensitive assessment of quality of life. The objective of this is to prepare for the main fieldwork period and ensure comparability across community studies. The main fieldwork is scheduled to begin in April 2004, and to run for approximately 18 months in each community. This will explore the research questions set out below, and pursue the major themes identified in the country studies and initial quality of life national workshops. A survey specially designed for the project to assess household needs, resources and levels of needs satisfaction will be carried out on the full sample population of 250 households in each of the sites. The main body of the fieldwork will consist of more in-depth quantitative and qualitative analysis on sub-samples of individuals, households, social networks, institutions and key events. These will seek to locate the immediate subject of study in its wider context of connections within the local, regional and national polity and to consider change or continuities over time.
The WeD agenda leads into the following research questions: For Field Research 1. How do people's subjective perceptions relate to objective indicators of their welfare? 2. How are meanings and values changing with globalisation and development? How do local meanings and values shape the form that development takes in different settings? 3. How do material, environmental, political, social, cultural, and psychological factors affect people's perceptions of needs and use of resources in response to opportunity and harm? 4. How do levels of inequality and processes of social exclusion affect objective states of welfare, scope for agency and subjective perceptions of quality of life? 5. How do local, regional and national structures and institutions impact on objective states of welfare, scope for agency and subjectively perceived quality of life? 6. What forms of individual or collective agency, conflict and solidarity shape and/or transform objective states of welfare and subjectively perceived quality of life?
7. How are differences in objective states of welfare and subjective perceptions of quality of life related to policy regimes at the regional, national and international level? 8. What patterns are distinctive to particular contexts, and what are common across them all? 9. How do universal models of human welfare
and quality of life relate to local priorities?
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