ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3 the traditional/modern binaries that are implicit in much work on change in the Global South were brought into question (see page 57). Individuals, households and communities do not make neat and full transformations from a former ‘traditional’ state to a ‘modern’ one. Nor is there a ‘traditional’ state that can be easily identified and then categorised. Change is characteristic of all societies, at all times in their histories. In every case, therefore, we need to ask the questions ‘from what?’ and ‘to what?’ In writing, however, that the traditional/modern binary fails to acknowledge the messiness of change it is also true that many people in the Global South do have a clear idea either that they are making the transition, or that they would like to, from a traditional to a modern existence. Scholars, for a range of reasons, may find difficulties with this vision of the relationship between the past, the present and the future but people who experience it at first hand rarely have such qualms.
