Cultural Imagination of Human Development? Framing Questions in a Preliminary Quest

Abstract

Could there be development without culture? A question, answered in negative by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), leads further to ask another probing question: could there be human development without cultural imagination? An obvious answer will be in negation, once again. However, it is pertinent to ask as to what notion of cultural imagination of human development stems from the dominant perspectives prevalent in the development discourses. The objective is to unveil and unsettle the notion of cultural imagination of human development in the light of a few critical instances. This paper seeks for a preliminary debate, contextualized in the local scenario vis-à-vis the state of Bihar in India, to analytically frame the question a little more and reveal the challenges involved in the development initiatives. The methodological manner is of a wandering ethnographer in quest of critical narratives, discursive threads, and debatable issues rather than mere statistics and policy resolutions. The microscopic empirical context, human development in Bihar, connects with the broader questions relevant at macroscopic level.