Rethinking Development: Communitarianism and Capabilities in African Contexts

Amartya Sen’s capability approach has been very influential in reframing development as the expansion of people’s substantive freedoms rather than mere growth, and in tying evaluation to what individuals are actually able to be and do. Building on this insight, I argue that a relational capabilities approach grounded in Kwame Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism should guide African development ethics because it retains Sen’s focus on expanding substantive freedoms while grounding those freedoms in the just, caring, and participatory relationships through which people in African societies actually come to flourish. Drawing on Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism, I distinguish a relational capabilities approach from Sen’s predominantly individual-focused framework by grounding capabilities in persons’ partial social constitution through community and showing how this insight can inform development practice in Africa. This article contributes to the existing knowledge by extending scholarship on relational capabilities through a critical application of Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism, arguing that development ethics should attend to both social embeddedness and individual agency. I use critical philosophical analysis to examine Sen’s capability approach, Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism, and an ubuntu-based approach, arguing that Gyekye’s account offers a plausible foundation for relational capabilities in African development.