Agency of Development and Agents of Change: Localization, Resistance, and Empowerment
The counterforce of development through localization is indispensable for rural poverty alleviation and development in India to be a sustaining and sustainable process. Rural poverty in India derives from a complex set of forces that often reinforce one another. The thesis in this paper focuses on particular strategies developed by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and their communities in rural India that not only help mitigate various forces that create and reinforce poverty but also serve as counter-development strategies. The focus in this paper is on two complex forces that have direct and indirect effects on rural poverty: (1) seasonality and (2) a global capitalist transformation of agriculture. Rural localization among the marginalized could be a counterdevelopment strategy that seeks to promote an alternative working model of rural regeneration. This process of regeneration is focused on creating an ecologically driven local agrarian economy that primarily functions as a provisioning mechanism of livelihood and food security and instrumentally also empowers people through the creation of local self-dependent communities. Based in a systems framework, rural localization aims to establish sustainable, self-sufficient livelihoods through the creation of internal markets between various village-level selfhelp groups. The power of localization as a socioeconomic movement lies in its ability to create civil society through community action.' This notion is echoed in the vision statement of Deccan Development Society (DDS), a rural development organization in southern India, which hopes to consolidate its village-level groups into vibrant organs of primary local governance and a strong pressure lobby for socially deprived groups such as woman, poor, and dalit2 (http://www.ddsindia.com).