This volume provides a new perspective on the role of culture in shaping the attitudes towards economic development of marginalised people both in the global North and global South. The strength of the collection lies in the examples from within India and without, which illuminate old Dalit-Savarna and Hindu-Muslim dynamics specific to India. These also facilitate a new understanding of the processes of marginalisation in northern capitalist contexts.

The essays draw attention to the various modernising forces that have rendered invisible the dynamics of cyclicity, bio-cultural regeneration, and social and ecological reproduction. The volume contrasts Western modernity and modernising processes in India, thereby providing startling new insights on modernity and non-modernity in contemporary India. This enables a deeper understanding of the nature of market forces and their effect on older, non-modern social, cultural, and epistemological dynamics and practices. Through specific examples and case studies from India, Europe, and the Americas, this volume explores key issues in the fraught relationship between development and marginalisation.

This book will be of considerable interest to students and scholars of social and cultural anthropology, development studies, cultural studies, and subaltern studies, especially in the context of South Asia.

Book Reviews
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CONTENTS
List of Tables, Figures, and Box
List of Abbreviations

Introduction
Frédérique Apffel- Marglin

Part I

Margin/Center Dynamics
Frédérique Apffel- Marglin

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
Ashish 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
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 Musahars 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

Part III

Questioning the Capability Approach
Frédérique Apffel-Marglin

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 A. Marglin
Glossary
Contributors

The Author(s)/ Editor(s)
Frédérique Apffel- Marglin is Professor Emerita, Department of Anthropology at Smith College, Massachusetts, USA and founder of Sachamama Center, Peru.

Sanjay Kumar is a Scholar Activist and Secretary, Deshkal Society, Delhi.

Arvind Kumar Mishra is Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.