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Interface of Cultural Identity and Development

by: Baidyanath Saraswati

This volume highlights the basic distinctions between anthropocentric and cosmocentric approaches to cultural identity and development. It discusses what constitutes culture and development and focuses on evolving viable, alternative development paradigms.

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ISBN: 9788124600542
Year Of Publication: 1996
Edition: 1st
Pages : xxi, 290
Language : English
Binding : Hardcover
Publisher: D.K. Printworld Pvt. Ltd.
Foreword By : Kapila Vatsyayan
Size: 25 cm.
Weight: 800

Overview

From the post-World War II decolonization to about mid-1980s, mainstream development thinking has focussed on ‘economics’, on the one-dimensional abstraction of homo economicus, to the exclusion of all else: specially the socio-cultural context in which development might take place. This divorce of ‘development’ from ‘culture’, however, was “poor economics” — a hard fact, which the international community has come to discover gradually, experientially. The United Nations too was not found wanting in its shared concern for culture. On 21 January 1988, it launched — under the aegis of Unesco — “The World Decade for Cultural Development” in its effort to chiefly (a) strengthen awareness of cultural dimension of development, and (b) enrich cultural identities the world over. In the Indian capital, the Indira Gandhi National Centrel for the Arts (IGNCA) has initiated a multidisciplinary discourse on development issues vis-a-vis the whole range of cultural variables and definitions. Which its newly-introduced series : Culture and Development proposes to cover in entirety. This inaugural volume, thematically focussing on “Interface of Cultural Identity and Development”, comprises 23 presentations of a Unesco-sponsored meeting of experts: 19-23 April 1993 at IGNCA, New Delhi. Highlighting the basic distinctions that exist between anthropocentric and cosmocentric approaches to the question of cultural identity and development, the authors reflect on what constitutes culture and development not per se, but as an integral holistic notion of culture and lifestyle, culture and development, culture and region, culture and linguistic/ecological identities, and how some of the viable alternative development paradigms could be evolved from the convergence of mystical ancient insights and modern science. Authored by eminent anthropologists, sociologists, scientists and other area-specialists from Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Iran, Mongolia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Turkey, the papers here not only consider diverse theoretical issues of cultural identity and development, but also set out case studies in different field situations.

Contents

Foreword
— Kapila Vatsyayan
Prologue
— Francis Childe
Introduction
— Baidyanath Saraswati
1. Interface of Science Consciousness and Identity
— S.C. Malik
2. Humanization of Development : A Theravada Buddhist Perspective
— P.D. Premasiri
3. Universal and Unique in Cross-cultural Intereaction : A Paradigm Shift in Development Ideology
— Lachman M. Khubchandani
4. Universality, Uniformity and Specificity: A View from a Developing Country
— Anisuzzaman
5. Identity, Tribesman and Development
— Mrinal Miri
6. Cultural Identity and Development in the Torres Strait Islands
— Leah Lui
7. Identity, Ownership and Appropriation : Aspects of Aboriginal Australian Experience in Tertiary Education
— Olga Gostin
8. Crisis of Cultural Identity in Mongolian Nomadic Civilization
— Otgonbayar
9. Quest for Cultural Identity in Turkey : National Unity of Historical Diversities and Continuities
— Bozkurt Guvenc
10. Popular Culture and Arabesque Music in Turkey
— Meral Ozbek
11. Cultural Pluralism and National Cultural Identity : The Case of Nepal
— Dilli R. Dahal
12. National Identity and Development in the Plural Society of Indonesia
— S. Budhisantoso
13. Cultural Pluralism, National Identity and Development : The Indian Case
— A.R. Momin
14. Secular Sovereign and Artha
— Parthasarathi Banerjee
15. Technology, Man and Spirituality : Sanctifying Technology Through Sacrifice
— Mohammed Reza Rikhtegaran
16. Culture and Technology : The Cultural Aspect of Technology
— Fatemeh Farahani
17. Civilizations and Settlement Societies : Cultural Development and Identity at the End of Twentieth Century
— Ravindra K. Jain
18. Cultural Preconditions for Development : Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered in the Light of Post-modernism
— Dawa Norbu
19. Cultural Identity and Development Process in Thailand
— Wit Wisadavet
20. Freedom to Grow and Growing into One
— Baidyanath Saraswati
21. Taming Structural Transformation : The Significance of Comunity Resolve of Mavalibhata
— B.D. Sharma

22. Development Activism : The Importance of Being Voluntary
— Bunker Roy
Recommendations
List of Contributors

Meet the Author
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B.N. Saraswati obtained his PhD from Ranchi University and specializes in the anthropology of religion and Indian civilization. He is the former UNESCO Professor at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. He was associated with the Anthropological Survey of India, Kolkata, for a decade, and another decade at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. During this period he did extensive field work in rural India and conducted a detailed study of Varanasi. Most recently he has been drawing out relevant themes from traditional thought and modern science to build up indigenous anthropology from within. He has authored The Sacred Science of Man, Ascetics of Kashi, and The Nature of Man and Culture: Alternate Paradigms in Anthropology, as well as many other books and publications.