Ananta Kumar Giri

This book cultivates visions and practices of integral development of the self, society, and the world. It builds upon deconstructions of development discourse and practice and strives to reconstruct and reconstitutes it as integral development. It addresses entrenched dualisms in development studies and practices such as between the self and the other, the providers of development and its recipients, materialism, and spirituality, and cultivates pathways of integral development. The book explores the many challenges facing development studies and practice such as poverty, creativity, political economy, moral economy, leadership, sustainable development, and evolutionary flourishing. It also opens the discourse and practice of development to cross-cultural dialogues by undertaking discussions between Euro-centric approaches to development and other visions and practices of development such as Purusartha, Swadhyaya, Sarvodaya, integral yoga, and Lokasasamgraha from Indic traditions.Drawing on multiple cultural and philosophical resources and traditions, Cultivating Integral Development is a pioneering work and will be of great interest to scholars, researchers, and actors of development studies, political science, and philosophy as well as concerned human beings around the world.

Social Healing draws on a transdisciplinary approach—bringing sociology, philosophy, psychology, and spirituality together—to understand health, social suffering and healing in our contemporary world. It shows how we can transform the present discourse and reality of social suffering by multi-dimensional movements of social healing. The author argues for the need for a new art of healing in place of the dominant and pervasive technology and politics of killing. It discusses manifold creative theories and practices of healing in self, society, and the world as well as new movements in social theory, philosophy, and social sciences which deploy creative methods of art and performance in healing our psychic and social wounds. It explores the spiritual, social, ethical, and political dimensions of health and healing. This pioneering work will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of social theory, sociology, politics, philosophy, and psychology.

This book rethinks and transforms the current discourse on globalization and global justice. It expands the idea of globalization from an economic or corporate context to mean humanization and planetary realizations — moving beyond the boundaries of nation-states and other human-made demarcations. The author challenges the notion of human primacy and makes a fervent call to reconfigure the paradigm of anthropocentrism. Through a careful study of movements for justice and inter-faith dialogue from across the world, the book makes a unique contribution to the emerging study of global responsibility. It also helps us overcome our current civilizational crises and cultivate a new civilization of planetary care and co-responsibility.As part of the Ethics, Human Rights and Global Political Thought series, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of law and society, especially social movements, political theory, and philosophy.

This book cultivates visions and practices of integral development of the self, society, and the world. It builds upon deconstructions of development discourse and practice and strives to reconstruct and reconstitutes it as integral development. It addresses entrenched dualisms in development studies and practices such as between the self and the other, the providers of development and its recipients, materialism, and spirituality, and cultivates pathways of integral development. The book explores the many challenges facing development studies and practice such as poverty, creativity, political economy, moral economy, leadership, sustainable development, and evolutionary flourishing. It also opens the discourse and practice of development to cross-cultural dialogues by undertaking discussions between Euro-centric approaches to development and other visions and practices of development such as Purusartha, Swadhyaya, Sarvodaya, integral yoga, and Lokasasamgraha from Indic traditions.Drawing on multiple cultural and philosophical resources and traditions, Cultivating Integral Development is a pioneering work and will be of great interest to scholars, researchers, and actors of development studies, political science, and philosophy as well as concerned human beings around the world.

Social Healing draws on a transdisciplinary approach—bringing sociology, philosophy, psychology, and spirituality together—to understand health, social suffering and healing in our contemporary world. It shows how we can transform the present discourse and reality of social suffering by multi-dimensional movements of social healing. The author argues for the need for a new art of healing in place of the dominant and pervasive technology and politics of killing. It discusses manifold creative theories and practices of healing in self, society, and the world as well as new movements in social theory, philosophy, and social sciences which deploy creative methods of art and performance in healing our psychic and social wounds. It explores the spiritual, social, ethical, and political dimensions of health and healing. This pioneering work will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of social theory, sociology, politics, philosophy, and psychology.

This book rethinks and transforms the current discourse on globalization and global justice. It expands the idea of globalization from an economic or corporate context to mean humanization and planetary realizations — moving beyond the boundaries of nation-states and other human-made demarcations. The author challenges the notion of human primacy and makes a fervent call to reconfigure the paradigm of anthropocentrism. Through a careful study of movements for justice and inter-faith dialogue from across the world, the book makes a unique contribution to the emerging study of global responsibility. It also helps us overcome our current civilizational crises and cultivate a new civilization of planetary care and co-responsibility.As part of the Ethics, Human Rights and Global Political Thought series, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of law and society, especially social movements, political theory, and philosophy.

Human liberation has become an epochal challenge in today’s world, requiring not only emancipation from oppressive structures but also from the oppressive self. It is a multidimensional struggle and aspiration in which knowledge – self, social and spiritual – can play a transformative role. ‘Knowledge and Human Liberation: Towards Planetary Realizations’ undertakes such a journey of transformation, and seeks to rethink knowledge vis-à-vis the familiar themes of human interest, critical theory, enlightenment, ethnography, democracy, pluralism, rationality, secularism and cosmopolitanism. The volume also features a Foreword by John Clammer (United Nations University, Tokyo) and an Afterword by Fred Dallmayr (University of Notre Dame).

Human liberation has become an epochal challenge in today’s world, requiring not only emancipation from oppressive structures but also from the oppressive self. It is a multidimensional struggle and aspiration in which knowledge – self, social and spiritual – can play a transformative role. ‘Knowledge and Human Liberation: Towards Planetary Realizations’ undertakes such a journey of transformation, and seeks to rethink knowledge vis-à-vis the familiar themes of human interest, critical theory, enlightenment, ethnography, democracy, pluralism, rationality, secularism and cosmopolitanism. The volume also features a Foreword by John Clammer (United Nations University, Tokyo) and an Afterword by Fred Dallmayr (University of Notre Dame).

Self-development of individuals and societies is an epochal challenge now but surprisingly very little has been written about this in the vast field of development studies and social sciences. The present book is one of the first efforts in this field and explores in detail the dynamics of pursuit of self-development and the accompanying contradictions in the self-study mobilization called Swadhyaya. Giri is one of the pioneers in bringing self-development to the core of theory and ethnographic multiverse of humanities and development studies. This outstanding book will be of interest to scholars in anthropology, sociology, development studies, humanities, and students of life all around the world.