This collection of essays seeks to explore common lessons from political sociology and development studies and-in this process-tries to resolve the tension between the author’s academic and practitioner worldviews. The author has tried to highlight one principal concern in this volume that development is more often than not a multicultural construct of everyday politics that is context-bound and predicated by statements of informed choices on the part of the stakeholders and/or beneficiaries involved. So development is more about who gets what, when, how, where and why in terms of an authoritative allocation of values that is underpinned by definitions of stakeholders or beneficiaries or affected persons. Such definitions are power statements that are scripted by agencies that generally tend to view development as an unevenness that may be restructured in terms of human and physical engineering as a level playing ground where players are equipped with uniform access to resources and similar opportunities. This is, however, a contentious issue without any simple answers. Such as interventionist approach may not always be sponsored by the mode of production or the marketplace of politics that-by definition-thrives on discrepancies and discriminations among unequally affected persons. The present work will be of interest to political sociologists, economic and social historians, development consultants, non-profit professionals, social workers, grassroots activists, urban planners, academics as well as researchers working in the development sector.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Prasenjit Maiti
Dr. Prasenjit Maiti (b 1971) is a political sociologist. He joined the development sector after teaching and researching at the Postgraduate and MPhil levels of the University of Burdwan during 1995-2002. He was on secondment at the Institute of Federalism, University of Fribourg, Switzerland (1999). He was the Director of North Africa, Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent on the inaugural Technical Committee of Fed-Net (2004) hosted by the Forum of Federations: An International Network on Federalism (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada). Dr Maiti was professionally associated with Action Aid, West Bengal Pollution Control Board, Consumer Unity and Trust Society, The Energy and Resources Institute, Council for Development Studies and Shelter Promotion Council in the recent past. He coordinated publication of the Urban Development Debates series (Volumes I-IV) brought out by Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi (2004-05). Dr. Maiti served as Reviewer (2001) for policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management (College of Education, Division of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati). He is also Referee for Environment and Development Economics (University of York, Heslington, York) published by the Cambridge University Press and Crime Prevention and Community Safety (Perpetuity Press, Leicester) as well as Reviewer for Globalization and Health published from London. His mainden publication on the problems of governance in the Indian context (2002) is based on his doctoral thesis developed from a German Research Council project under the auspices of the Department of Political Science at the South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg. Dr. Maiti was invited to the International Conference on Federalism 2002 organized by the Swiss Government at the University of St Gallen (2002).
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