What Does Wellbeing Mean in Different Cultural and Religious Contexts? An Analysis of the Conceptualizations of Wellbeing in Development Assistance aimed at Indigenous Peoples in the Andes. Issue 2 (4th May 2019) - Drange, Live Danbolt
Abstract: A central motivation for engaging in humanitarian development assistance, nongovernmental as well as governmental, is to facilitate wellbeing of people considered poor and needy. During the last decades, there has been a debate about a more comprehensive understanding of development and wellbeing. Wellbeing has become a main concept in humanitarian aid targeting needy people in the global south. This article focuses on how the concept of wellbeing is understood in varying traditions and contexts that meet in development cooperation: by Andean indigenous peoples, by Western aid workers based in evangelical Faith-based organizations working in the Andes, and by the Capability Approach 'CA', which has influenced development cooperation considerably the last decades. How will differences in understanding wellbeing by the actors affect the performance and the results of development cooperation? What consequences may it have for the cooperation if the aid worker is not aware of the differences?