Development Projects and Critical Theory of Development

✍ Scribed by Jyotsna Bapat

• Publisher: Sage Publications
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 246
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book proposes an original critical theory of environmental sociology which is verified through actual projects relating to infrastructure development. The author locates each development project in its social, institutional and historical contexts, and explains their outcomes as the consequence of the actions of various individuals and groups, each acting rationally to optimise their own interests. The author argues that agencies regulating environmental impact should adopt a `reconstructive adaptive' strategy aimed at leaving the physical environment in a better condition than when the project began. Similarly, development projects should ensure that people affected by these projects, especially those whose livelihoods are linked to environmental resources, are at least as well off as they were without the project.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 8
Preface......Page 10
Introduction......Page 14
Critical Theory of Environment......Page 37
Methodology of Research......Page 71
Environmental Protest, Locality and Modernity......Page 88
National Parks, Land Alienation and Tribal Livelihoods......Page 110
Aierawat (The White Elephant) and Other Stories......Page 129
Cultural Imperatives of Technology Transfer......Page 152
Limits to Pollution Abatement......Page 173
Do Ideologies Matter in Urban Transport Projects?......Page 191
Environmental Struggles, Protest and Survival......Page 217
References......Page 230
Index......Page 238
About the Author......Page 246