Interrogating Development Insights from the Margins

This collection presents a new perspective on the role of culture in shaping the ambivalent attitude towards economic development of many marginalized people. The strength of this volume lies in how the essays provide examples from both within India and without, to illuminate old Dalit/Savarna and also Hindu/Muslim dynamics specific to India. The volume clearly defines how asymmetrical complementary relationships between Dalits and Savarnas are being replaced by short-term contractual labour relations that no longer involve long-term intergenerational reciprocal obligations. The essays draw attention to the non-modern, non-Western agents that have rendered invisible the dynamics of cyclicity, bio-cultural regeneration, and social and ecological reproduction (SER). What the volume achieves is an understanding of the specifics of Western modernism and modernism in India. Also, through specific examples in India, the US, and elsewhere, it clarifies some of the profound differences between modern, capitalist processes of marginalization as well as non-modern ones.

1. - Cultural Perspectives on Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: Situating Cultural Practices of the Marginal Communities In India, Rahul Ghai and Sanjay Kumar;
2. - Humiliation: Politics and Cultural Psychology of the Limits of Human Degradation, Ashis Nandy;
3. - Pollution, Subsistence, Sustainability in USA Nationalism: The Symbolic Construction of 'Appalachia' as America's 'trash' People, Betsy Taylor;
4. - Livelihoods and Cultural Codes: Pork and Pigs in Indian Culture, Maren Bellwinkel-Schempp; PART II: CULTURAL PRACTICES, Introduction to PART II, Frédérique Apffel-Marglin;
5. - The Potential of Fair Trade for Bio-Cultural Regeneration: The Case of the Oro Verde cooperative in Peru, Frédérique Apffel-Marglin;
6. - Representation, Resistance, and Identity: The Musahards of the Middle Gangetic Plain, Sanjay Kumar, Arvind Mishra, Badri Narayan, and Rafiul Ahmed;
7. - Seeking Begumpura: Radical Bhakti and Dalit Social Movements, Gail Omvedt;
8. - Qissa Mir-e-Alam: Experiences of reinvigorating sufiyana qalam tradition with marginalized musicians, Rahul Ghai;
9. - Culture Matters in the Knowledge Economy, Linda Tuhiwai Smith;
10. - How can the Capability Approach be used to Serve Marginalized Communities at the Grassroots Level?, Ingrid Robeyns;
11. - Language Disadvantage and Capability Deprivation of Tribal Mother Tongue Speakers, Ajit Mohanty;
12. - . From Imperialism to Globalization by Way of Development, Stephen Marglin.

Frédérique Apffel-Marglin is Professor Emerita, Department of Anthropology at Smith College, Northampton, MA, USA ; Sanjay Kumar is Secretary, Deshkal Society, Delhi ; Arvind Kumar Mishra is Assistant Professor, Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi