In the Way of Development: Indigenous Peoples, Life
Projects and Globalization
2004
Publisher: Zed Books
Authors: Mario Blaser, Harvey A. Feit and Glenn McRae (eds.)
Available: http://www.zedweb.cybergecko.net/
Collaboration between indigenous leaders, social activists and scholars from a wide range of disciplines, In the Way of Development explores the current situation of indigenous peoples enmeshed in the remorseless expansion of the modern economy.
The volume assembles a rich diversity of statements, case studies and wider thematic explorations all starting with indigenous peoples as actors, not victims. The accounts come primarily from North America, but include also studies from South America, and the former Soviet Union.
In the Way of Development shows how the boundaries between indigenous
peoples' organizations, civil society, the state, markets, development
and the environment are ambiguous and constantly changing. This fact makes
local political agency possible, but also, ironically, opens the possibility
of undermining it.
The volume presents these complex, power-laden, often contradictory
features of indigenous agency and relationships. It shows how peoples do
not just resist or react to the pressures of market and state, but also
sustain 'life projects' of their own.
'This superb book builds on the illuminating contrast between the 'life projects' of indigenous people and the 'development projects' funded by global capital. 'Life projects' are about the right of any people to define the meaning of their life and their place in the cosmos. The book is filled with ambiguous but sometimes hopeful examples of indigenous peoples working with NGOs, governments, and corporations to defend their autonomy, and in the process shaping human rights and development agendas nationally and globally' - John H. Bodley, Professor of Anthropology, Washington State University, author of Victims of Progress (1999) and The Power of Scale (2003).
'A comprehensive account of relations between agents of globalization
- corporations and states - and indigenous peoples worldwide. The book
provides a unique synthesis of indigenous peoples' strategies of active
resistance and approaches to living autonomously. It indicates lessons
for us, both about the importance of supporting indigenous peoples who
are at the front lines in this struggle, and for the ways we orient our
own agency as we come to grips with similar forces.' - Michael Asch, University
of Victoria, Canada.