Development, Poverty of Culture, and Social Policy

by Mohan, Brij; Gil, David G.

• ISBN13: 9780230110250
• ISBN10: 0230110258
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-01-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

The "cycle of poverty," a myth manufactured and sustained by the Parsonian pundits of social theory and welfare, has blamed the victims of oppression with impunity. Brij Mohan deconstructs Oscar Lewis' Cultureof Poverty theory and its applications in the fields of social welfare, policy, and development. Poverty, a global scourge, is defined as a political rather than an economic issue. The implications of this formulation paradigmatically shift the focus of discourse in the social sciences.Development, Poverty of Culture, and Social Policyoffers an interdisciplinary analysis of complex issues, constructs, and interventions that deal with human-social problems with global implications. "Poverty of Culture" posits social development theory and practice in a critically important context challenging the scientific orthodoxy of our times.

Author Biography

Brij Mohan is Dean Emeritus of the School of Social Work at Louisiana State University, where he formerly taught as a professor. He is, most recently, the author of Fallacies of Development Crises of Human and Social Development (2007), Reinventing Social Work: The Metaphysics of Social Practice (2005), The Practice of Hope (2003), Social Work Revisited (2002), Unification of Social Work (1999), and Eclipse of Freedom (1993). Dr. Mohan, credited by many as the Habermas of Social Work, is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Comparative Social Welfare. The M.K. Gandhi Kashi University lately awarded him Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) for his outstanding Contributions to social sciences.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Preface and Acknowledgments	p. xi
Prologue	p. xiii
Culture of Development
Theorizing Poverty of Culture: Requiem for Change	p. 3
Development Delusion	p. 25
Entropy of Developmentalism	p. 31
The Politics of Development	p. 47
The Mind of Darkness
End of the Third World	p. 65
The Rise of the Rest	p. 77
The Evil of Banality	p. 87
India's New Caste War: The Archeology of a Perpetual Conflict	p. 97
Transformative Social Policy
The Ordeal of Reason	p. 111
Social Intervention Revisited: Toward a Science of Change	p. 121
Rethinking International Social Work	p. 131
Social Practice in Troubled Times: Limits of Imagination	p. 145
New Social Development: A Paradigm Shift	p. 159
Human Rights Today	p. 181
Idiom of Change: The Future of Social Sciences	p. 195
Epilogue: Culture as a Defensive Spider	p. 207
Index	p. 213
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