The study of modernity and development has emerged on Anveshi’s agenda through our work in different initiatives such as education, health and law. In many of these engagements, we have been forced to confront the dilemmas and paradoxes of modernity in general and development thinking in particular.
Development has traditionally meant governmental intervention in the lives of the poor and has historically taken two forms: one, natural resource development, and two, welfare programmes to ameliorate poverty. The primary agenda of this research initiative has been to provide a framework that will help critically examine the current practices in development policy. The Development Initiative is the youngest in Anveshi, with an active programme dating from 2004. Under the stewardship of R.Srivatsan, it has till recently, anchored several workshops with universities and at Anveshi and interventions during the statehood movement of Telangana between 2009 and 2013 and cross fertilized the other initiatives such as health and health care initiative.
The latest in this initiative has been a stimulating national seminar on Development Beyond the State in January 2018 that sought to engage the ways in which political initiatives that either run parallel to the statist imagination or in tune with the imagination or against its imagination have wrestled with developmental thinking. The domains that this seminar discussed were that of religion, language, education and left politics, among others.
Completed Projects
The Development Reader
The Development Reader is an edited volume of extracts from contributions to development theory in the past fifty years. Each extract is preceded by a headnote that discusses the work of the author and places the contribution in context. The book addresses the non-specialist academic, interested administrators, activists, students, and laypersons, confronted with ideas that take shape in the domain of development thinking. The substantive introduction seeks to outline the system of thinking called development. Edited by R.Srivatsan, it was published by Rutledge in 2012
Women in Industries: Sexual Division of Labor (1995-97)
This short-term research project, undertaken by P. Madhavi, examined women’s work in industries dealing with electronics, pharmaceuticals, leather, garments, food processing in the organized sector and beedi industry in the informal sector in Hyderabad city. Findings showed that women were almost always relegated to the unskilled category in factories; by placing them in the unskilled category, the work of women was constantly undervalued. In spite of the fact that the end -product of their labour was commercially valued, their input was not regarded as “work”. It was found that the sexual division of labour pushed women into certain kinds of jobs where women compete with each other, not with men. It also weakened women’s position in the industry by affecting their training prospects and growth. A report based on the research conducted in select industries was published in Bhumika in the March-April 1998 issues.
Background Report on Gender Issues in India: Key Findings and Recommendations (1995)
This report was prepared by Mary John and K. Lalita for Overseas Development Agency, UK. It provides an overview of the status of women’s issues in India in sectors such as economy, health, education, water resources, sanitation, housing and caste/community identities, including the third sector. The report is used extensively by NGOs and funding agencies.