Description
Many political battles, policy initiatives, academic debates and our understanding of the world in general have been shaped by the ideas that have developed around the concepts of environment, technology and development. While they emerged independent of each other, today they are closely interconnected and it is difficult to think of the one without the others. How do these concepts influence each other, how have they subverted established ideas and dogmas, how have they developed over time and what are their varied uses and meaning? This volume brings together writings across disciplines, perspectives and ideologies that address these questions, map the main conceptual lines and identify the points where they converge and diverge. The articles have appeared over the past four decades in the Economic and Political Weekly. The introduction provides an overview of the theoretical underpinnings that led to the emergence of the current notion of environmental development. The chapters are selected and arranged in a non-linear manner that allows the reader to get a sense of the wide-ranging debates. The essays see the progress of technology in its political context and in relation to the social and environmental consequences it engenders. They show how technology is enmeshed with politics as is environment with development, and how agriculture is interwoven with ecology. The transfer of resources from the marginalised to the empowered groups and the crucial issue of spatial politics where space is constituted, assembled and forged by the economically powerful are also discussed. This volume will provoke, educate, stimulate and inform the lay reader and specialist alike, and will be a good resource for students of social sciences.
