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Village Voices
Forty Years of Rural Transformation in South India
First Edition
- T Scarlett Epstein - Scarlett Epstein Social Assessment Consultancy
- A P Suryananrayana - Government of India
- T Thimmegowda - Government of India
November 1998 | 244 pages | SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd
This book sets out in detail, and in a very engaging manner, the thrills as well as the difficulties involved in living with and at the same time studying rural societies. A unique feature of this absorbing account is that it documents forty years of change (both positive and negative) in two villages of south India by the same team of researchers.
T Scarlett Epstein
Introduction: Village Studies with a Difference
A P Suryananrayana
PART ONE: EXPERIENCES OF A RESEARCH ASSISTANT
My First Experience of Village Life
T Thimmegowda
PART TWO: AN INSIDER'S VIEWS
Wangala's Traditional Social System
How Wangala's Economy has Changed since 1954
How Wangala's Political and Cultural Practices have Changed
The Pros and Cons of Wangala's Socio-Economic Development
T Scarlett Epstein
PART THREE: A RESEARCHER'S VIEWS
The Preliminaries of a Field Study
The Impact of Canal Irrigation on Wangala and Dalena, 1954-56
Re-exposure to Mysore Villages in 1970
Predictions Based on Micro-Society Studies
Another Re-Study in the 1990s
How the Two Villages have Changed
Economic Change Factors
Political Change Factors
New Lives and Old Traditions
Predictions: Wrong and Right
T Scarlett Epstein and T Thimmegowda
PART FOUR: THE WAY AHEAD
What the Future Holds
Appendices
Glossary
`The study is remarkable in the spread of its coverage, the objectivity and range of the analysis and its time-span. Its empathy with village culture and individuals' aspirations is likely to make it one of the great classic studies of rural development, as well as a mine of information for future historians of Indian society in the 20th century' - Worldaware