Transformative Institutions and Capabilities to Aspire in the Context of Radical Uncertainty: Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic

The article addresses the issue of transformative institutions and capabilities to aspire by framing it in the context of the radical uncertainty arising from today's structural crises, which strongly challenge the very ways and possibility of prefiguring a desirable future. Following the reflections of Amartya Sen and Arjun Appadurai, capabilities to aspire are not just an individual matter, as the conditions that enable their development are deeply embedded in social and institutional contexts. The article explains why and in what sense current contexts of uncertainty require transformative institutional dynamics that strengthen the ways in which alternative futures can be imagined and pursued, and what this implies with respect to capabilities to aspire. The analysis refers to the empirical field of the Covid-19 pandemic and in particular to a research study on the community health programme called “Micro-areas” implemented in the north-east of Italy. The case is a paradigmatic example of the relationship between transformative institutional dynamics and capabilities to aspire in contexts of crisis. In the conclusions, the article highlights some institutional factors that emerge as important with respect to the development of capabilities to aspire.