Taking the Heideggerian critical ontology of technology as its base, this volume looks at postcolonial modernization and development in the global south as the worldwide expansion of the western metaphysical understanding of reality. We live today in an increasingly globalizing technological society that Martin Heidegger described in the middle of the last century as 'the planetary imperialism of technologically organized man.' Consequent upon this cultural-intellectual globalization, the ahistorical, violent, individualistic, calculative and capitalistic logic of the metaphysics of technology is permeating (...) the life-world, even of the world's poorest peoples, in ways they could neither choose nor control. This volume questions the political ethics and justice of post-war development discourse in the light of the egalitarian aims of modern societies, cultural freedom of communities and nations, and the ecological limits of the planet. The final chapters discuss the alternative proposal of development as various conceptions of good life and equitable human flourishing amidst equally flourishing non-human life and non-living beings. This unique volume is the first book-length treatment of the ontology of modernization and development in the global south from a Heideggerian stance. (shrink)

NGO-based and rigorously monitored development programmes are bringing about important and positive socio-economic changes in the developing world. However, there are numerous instances of the employment of aggressive and grueling monitoring techniques which objectify the subject of development, the primary stakeholder, claiming development results as the successful achievement of goals of the donor or implementing organization. It is in this context that one can speak of an ethic of monitoring development programmes. The paper argues that such an ethic can be (...) positively based on principles like empowering people through development work without hurting their sense of self-worth, the principle of trust and partnership and, negatively, never striving to objectify any person or people for the achievement of some objective, even if this objective is in itself honourable and desirable. The paper contends that if development is freeing the subject, the central player, to exercise their capability to live their life to the fullest, then development monitoring and development work in general has to enhance freedom, autonomy and openness. (shrink)

In contemporary discourses on cosmo-political hospitality, contributions of Derrida, and especially of Levinas, have special significance on account of the vision, scale and relevance of their discussions on the theme, in the context of an increasingly globalizing international scene, and the consequent global encounter with diversity. The article strives to read the Indian hospitality tradition and ethos, articulated in several of India's culturally significant texts, and available in some way as a cultural practice even to this day (propped up by (...) a heritage of tolerance and acceptance of difference, which, however, has not necessarily translated into egalitarian social structures), through the lenses of cosmo-political hospitality, found in the writings of Levinas and Derrida, as openness to the other, irrespective of social labels imposed on her/him. Although homely, ritualistic and hierarchical, Indian hospitality was always universalistic in intent. The article argues that an attempt to recapture the core of the Indian ethos of hospitality, should take into account this universalistic intent, revisited as genuine openness to the other person, in the light of contemporary concerns raised by Levinas and Derrida, and fully awake to India's and the world's transformed context. (shrink)

The mainstream approach to the understanding of pain continues to be governed by the biomedical paradigm and the dualistic Cartesian ontology. This Volume brings together essays of scholars of literature, philosophy and history on the many enigmatic shades of pain-experience, mostly from an anti-Cartesian perspective of cultural ontology by scholars of literature, philosophy and history. A section of the essays is devoted to the socio-political dimensions of pain in the Indian context. The book offers a critical perspective on the reductive (...) conceptions of pain and argue that non-substance ontology or cultural ontology supports a more humane and authentic understanding of pain. The general ontological features of the self in pain and culturally imbued dimensions of pain-experience are, thus, brought together in a rare blend in this Volume. The essays dwell on the importance of understanding what cultural, social and political forces outside our control do to our pain-experience. They show why such understanding is necessary, both to humanely deal with pain, and to rectify erroneous approaches to pain-experience. They also explore the thoroughly ambivalent spaces between pain and pleasure, and the cathartic and productive dimensions of pain. The essays in this Volume investigate pain-experiences through the fresh lenses of history, gender, ethics, politics, death, illness, self-loss, torture, shame, dispossession and denial. (shrink)