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Liandra
van Staden
Biography
Liandra van Staden holds a BTech in Textile Design and Technology from Tshwane University of Technology and began her career as a textile designer working in the commercial sector. During this time, she became increasingly aware of the social and environmental impacts of the fashion and textile industry, prompting a shift toward questions of justice, sustainability, and systemic change. In 2020, she completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainable Development at Stellenbosch University, where she explored the complexities of achieving a Just Transition. At the same time, she joined the social movement organisation Fashion Revolution, where she now serves as Co-Country Coordinator and has been part of the team establishing the organisation as a local non-profit. In this role, she contributes to work focused on education, advocacy, and public engagement. This trajectory led her to focus on education as a pivotal space for change. She currently works in creative higher education and is pursuing a Master’s at the University of Cape Town, in Adult, Community Education & Training. Her work explores learning, empowerment, and lived experience through a feminist critical lens.
Stitching stories: A relational capabilitarian approach for understanding well-being and empowerment of women in the clothing sector
This study explores the lived experiences of women working within South Africa’s clothing and textile sector, with the aim of understanding how well-being and empowerment are perceived beyond dominant economic frameworks. While current development strategies prioritise growth, employment, and global competitiveness, limited attention is given to how these approaches align with the lived realities of the women who constitute the majority of the workforce. Drawing on Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach, extended through a relational feminist lens, the research examines the capabilities, functionings, and forms of agency that women value in their everyday lives. Situated within a Participatory Action Research (PAR) design, the study employs photovoice and collective reflection as both method and medium. Here, creative practice operates as an intervention, enabling participants to document, interpret, and reframe their experiences. Thematic analysis of the visual and narrative data revealed four interconnected dimensions of well-being: family, ancestry and care; place, nature and memory; knowledge, craft and lifelong learning; and recognition, vulnerability and power. Findings indicate that well-being is not primarily defined in economic terms, but through relational, place-based dimensions that support identity, dignity, and belonging. While work contributes to meaning-making, structural constraints and experiences of misrecognition limit the conversion of valued capabilities into realised functionings. By foregrounding visual and narrative expression, the research demonstrates how creative methodologies can disrupt dominant development discourses and surface alternative imaginaries of a “good life” grounded in dignity, relationality, and autonomy. In doing so, the study challenges the dominance of economic metrics of empowerment, calling for approaches that recognise and expand the lived, relational capabilities through which women define and pursue a life they have reason to value.