Analysing wellbeing: a framework for development practice

This article presents a framework for analysing wellbeing in development practice, drawing on the work of the Wellbeing in Developing Countries Research Group (WeD). Wellbeing is viewed as a social process with material, relational, and subjective dimensions. Wellbeing may be assessed at individual and collective levels, but at base is something that happens in relationship – between individual and collective; between local and global; between people and state. The article considers potential hazards in taking wellbeing as focus, and concludes by considering what real difference such a focus could make.