• Prelims [ Inter-Church Organization for Development | Cooperation Statement | Acknowledgements | Series Editors’ Foreword | Author’s Preface
• 1 Livelihoods Perspectives: A Brief History
• Livelihoods Thinking
• Sustainable Rural Livelihoods
• Keywords
• Core Questions
• 2 Livelihoods, Poverty and Wellbeing
• Livelihood Outcomes: Conceptual Foundations
• Measuring Livelihood Outcomes
• Evaluating Inequality
• Multidimensional Metrics and Indices
• Whose Indicators Count? Participatory and Ethnographic Approaches
• Poverty Dynamics and Livelihood Change
• Rights, Empowerment and Inequality
• Conclusion
• 3 Livelihoods Frameworks and Beyond
• Livelihood Contexts and Strategies
• Livelihood Assets, Resources and Capitals
• Livelihood Change
• Politics and Power
• What’s in a Framework?
• Conclusion
• 4 Access and Control: Institutions, Organizations and Policy Processes
• Institutions and Organizations
• Understanding Access and Exclusion
• Institutions, Practice and Agency
• Difference, Recognition and Voice
• Policy Processes
• Unpacking the Black Box
• 5 Livelihoods, the Environment and Sustainability
• People and the Environment: A Dynamic Relationship
• Resource Scarcity: Beyond Malthus
• Non-Equilibrium Ecologies
• Sustainability as Adaptive Practice
• Livelihoods and Lifestyles
• A Political Ecology of Sustainability
• Sustainability Reframed: Politics and Negotiation
• 6 Livelihoods and Political Economy
• Unity of the Diverse
• Class, Livelihoods and Agrarian Dynamics
• States, Markets and Citizens
• Conclusion
• 7 Asking the Right Questions: An Extended Livelihoods Approach
• Political Economy and Rural Livelihood Analysis: Six Cases
• Emerging Themes
• Conclusion
• 8 Methods for Livelihoods Analysis
• Mixed Methods: Beyond Disciplinary Silos
• Operational Approaches to Livelihoods Assessment
• Towards a Political Economy Analysis of Livelihoods
• Challenging Biases
• Conclusion
• 9 Bringing Politics Back In: New Challenges for Livelihoods Perspectives
• Politics of Interests
• Politics of Individuals
• Politics of Knowledge
• Politics of Ecology
• A New Politics of Livelihoods
• Back Matter [References | Index]

'This is an extraordinarily important book. It should become a classic. It is a must for every development professional. It is a masterly analysis and overview of the evolution and dimensions of the sustainable livelihoods approach, and opens up new territory of political economy, political ecology and a new politics of livelihoods. Concise yet comprehensive, combining and drawing on the perspectives of many disciplines, accessible to all readers, professionally impeccable, and on top of all this, original in its analysis and extension into new fields, this book is a wonderful contribution to development thinking and action. May it be very widely read, and may it be very influential.'
Robert Chambers, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex

'In this uniquely comprehensive, lucid and valuable review of notions of sustainable livelihoods and their applications, Ian Scoones makes a potent argument for reinstating an expansive perspective on livelihoods, informed by the political economy of agrarian change, at the centre of current concerns with overcoming rural inequality and poverty.'
Henry Bernstein, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

'Ian Scoones has produced a book that is in perfect balance: immensely useful, it is also challenging; theoretically perceptive, it is wonderfully readable; historically informed, it also looks forward, proposing agendas for scholars and professionals alike. Students and practitioners will find it invaluable because it places livelihood thinking in context, explores its applications, explains its limits and — perhaps most important of all — persuades the reader that being political and being practical are absolutely not mutually exclusive options in development, whether writing about it or working within it.'
Anthony Bebbington, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University and idpm, University of Manchester

'This book offers a sanguine assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of a sustainable livelihoods approach. The proposed extension of the approach builds on a political economy tradition in agrarian and development studies. Nurturing sustainable livelihoods for the poor is not just about recognizing their exceptional skill at making a living, which includes diversifying livelihoods, jumping scales and nesting home places within productive networks, but also mitigating their vulnerability to land grabs, drought and floods, natural disasters, corporate greed and venal politics.'
Simon Batterbury, University of Melbourne

Ian Scoones
Ian Scoones is co-director of the ESRC STEPS Centre at Sussex and joint convenor of the IDS-hosted Future Agricultures Consortium. He is an agricultural ecologist whose interdisciplinary research links the natural and social sciences.