ABSTRACT
Against the background of the failure of over 25 years of development efforts in South Asia to benefit the poor, two specific initiatives emerged in the mid 1970s. South Asian organizations (particularly in India and Bangladesh) began to experiment with alternative ways of raising the awareness of the rural poor and mobilizing them to undertake self-reliant actions and improve their livelihood. In addition, a group of concerned social scientists, reflecting upon the failure of past development efforts, began to interact with the emerging grassroots initiatives that were undertaking the analysis, conceptualization and development of new perspectives and methodologies.
