This book analyses and discusses the multiple dimensions of social exclusion/inclusion seen in South Asia. It not only captures how ‘social exclusion’ is intrinsic to deprivation or deprivation in itself, but also the processes of political engagement and social interactions that the socially excluded develop as strategies and networks for their advancement. Consequently, the book goes beyond structures or agency, and examines the question of a more dynamic approach to provide spaces for the ‘socially excluded’ to self-manage exclusion, thereby raising discussions around the contested positions that underlie development discourse on social inequality. While social exclusion linked to identities is studied, the book argues that hierarchies and inequalities based on social identities cut across and affect various groups of excluded. Consequently, these phenomena create or lead to various processes of exclusion. The book illustrates that social exclusion should not be limited to privileging the differences that characterize the exclusionary processes, but should also comprise underpinning strategies of ‘inclusion’, emphasizing the need to focus on imperatives ‘to include’. As a result, the book acknowledges that social exclusion is not limited to analyzing the different identities that face exclusion, but also understanding the systems and processes that create social exclusion, or create opportunities for inclusion of the excluded.The book addresses readership across academic disciplines (including in the growing field of state capacity and governance), and practitioners (administrators and policy-making communities). Conclusively, the book, provides a platform to intensively exchange the multifaceted and critical issue of social exclusion/inclusion, and thus contributes to inclusive sustainable development discourse.

Questions of who can access land and who is excluded from it underlie many recent social and political conflicts in Southeast Asia. Powers of Exclusion examines the key processes through which shifts in land relations are taking place, notably state land allocation and provision of property rights, the dramatic expansion of areas zoned for conservation, booms in the production of export-oriented crops, the conversion of farmland to post-agrarian uses, “intimate” exclusions involving kin and co-villagers, and mobilizations around land framed in terms of identity and belonging. In case studies drawn from seven countries, the authors find that four “powers of exclusion”—regulation, the market, force and legitimation—have combined to shape land relations in new and often surprising ways. Land debates are often presented as a conflict between market-oriented land use with full private property rights on the one side, and equitable access, production for subsistence, and respect for custom on the other. The authors step back from these debates to point out that any productive use of land requires the exclusion of some potential users, and that most projects for transforming land relations are thus accompanied by painful dilemmas. Rather than counterposing “exclusion” to “inclusion,” the book argues that attention must be paid to who is excluded, how, why, and with what consequences. Powers of Exclusion is a path-breaking book that draws on insights from multiple disciplines to map out the new contours of struggles for land in Southeast Asia. The volume provides a framework for analyzing the dilemmas of land relations across the Global South and beyond.

This book challenges the way development has been conceptualized and practiced in South Asian context, and argues for its deconstruction in a way that would allow freedom, choice and greater well-being for the local people. Far from taking development for granted as growth and advancement, this book unveils how development could also be a destructive force to local socio-cultural and environmental contexts. With a critical examination of such conventional development practices as hegemonic, patriarchal, devastating and failure, it highlights how the rethinking of development could be seen as a matter of practice by incorporating peopleâ (TM)s interest, priorities and participation. The book theoretically challenges the conventional notion of hegemonic development and proposes alternative means, and, practically, provides nuances of ethnographic knowledge which will be of great interest to policy planners, development practitioners, educationists and anyone interested in knowing more about how people think about their own development.

This book explores the historical roots of rapid economic growth in South Asia, with reference to politics, markets, resources, and the world economy. Roy posits that, after an initial slow period of growth between 1950 and the 1980s, the region has been growing rapidly and fast catching up with the world on average levels of living. Why did this turnaround happen? Does it matter? Is it sustainable? The author answers these questions by drawing connections, comparisons, and parallels between the five large countries in the region: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. It shows why, despite differences in political experience between these countries, similarities in resources and markets could produce similar trajectories. Home to a fifth of the world’s population, South Asia’s transformation has the power to change the world. Most accounts of the process focus on individual nations, but by breaking out of that mould, Roy takes on the region as a whole, and delivers a radical new interpretation of why the economy of South Asia is changing so fast.

This handbook is an important reference work in understanding education systems in the South Asia region, their development trajectory, challenges and potential. The handbook includes the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries for discussion---Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka---while also considering countries such as Myanmar and the Maldives that have considerable shared history in the region. Such a comparative perspective is largely absent within the literature given the present paucity of intra-regional interaction. South Asian education systems are viewed primarily through a development lens in terms of inequalities, challenges and responses. However, the development of modern institutions of education and the challenges that it faces requires cultural and historical understanding of indigenous traditions as well as indigenous modern thinkers and education movements. Therefore, this encompassing referenc e work covers indigenous education traditions, formal education systems, including school and preschool education, higher and professional education, education financing systems and structures, teacher education systems, addressing huge linguistic and other diversities, and marginalization within the formal education system, and pedagogy and curricula. All the countries in this region have their own unique geographical, cultural, economic and political character and histories of interest and significance, and have responded to common issues such as overcoming the colonial legacy, language diversity, or girls’ education, or minority rights in education, in uniquely different ways. The sections therefore include country-specific perspectives as far as possible to highlight these issues. Internationally renowned specialists of South Asian education systems have contributed to this important reference work, making it an invaluable resource for researchers and students of education interested in South Asia.

Over the course of less than a century, the U.S. transformed from a nation that excluded Asians from immigration and citizenship to one that receives more immigrants from Asia than from anywhere else in the world. Yet questions of how that dramatic shift took place have long gone unanswered. In this first comprehensive history of Asian exclusion repeal, Jane H. Hong unearths the transpacific movement that successfully ended restrictions on Asian immigration. The mid-twentieth century repeal of Asian exclusion, Hong shows, was part of the price of America's postwar empire in Asia. The demands of U.S. empire-building during an era of decolonization created new opportunities for advocates from both the U.S. and Asia to lobby U.S. Congress for repeal. Drawing from sources in the United States, India, and the Philippines, Opening the Gates to Asia charts a movement more than twenty years in the making. Positioning repeal at the intersection of U.S. civil rights struggles and Asian decolonization, Hong raises thorny questions about the meanings of nation, independence, and citizenship on the global stage.

This book brings together cross-cultural perspectives on political economy of social exclusion and a critical view of policies of inclusion. The themes covered are political economy of social exclusion; inclusionary policy outcomes; persistent challenges to social exclusion and rethinking social exclusion and inclusion. The contexts are located in varied geographies including India, South East Asia, USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia and Papua New Guinea. The book throws light on how, historically, social inclusion of various excluded communities has always been a part of nation building with varying results. Furthermore, it highlights how the terrain of social exclusion is becoming increasingly complex today. It provides the space to reimagine issues of inclusion and exclusion within the social policy landscape of a country. It provides ways to rethink policies of inclusion such that dialogue between the excluded and the state is enhanced, and the systems of seeking justice for a dignified life, peace and freedom are improved. It appeals to policy makers, academicians and practitioners of development and social policy studies, planning and governance in both developing and developed countries.