Pursuing Alternative Development ─ Indigenous People, Ethnic Organization and Agency

The author critically challenges the global hegemonic development discourse. He examines how indigenous peoples resist mainstream development initiatives led by the state and NGOs; instead, they become united, form their own ethnic organizations and promote development by themselves. Drawing upon ethnographic descriptions of three grassroots ethnic organizations, which work for indigenous peoples in promoting economic livelihood, education and strive for social justice, this book investigates the possibilities and challenges of alternative development. It offers a fresh anthropological insight of how an alternative development model is attainable - which is endowed with freedom, choice and empowerment - a matter that many scholars in the field of sociology and anthropology of development have long been looking for.

M. Saiful Islam is an anthropologist and assistant professor of Development Studies at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was the former Head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University Brunei Darussalam. His research interests include alternative development; cultural dimensions of health and illness; health, environment and sustainable development; migration and gender.