ABSTRACT
This book focuses on a popular case, the Sardar Sarovar ‘Narmada project’ in India to show when, how and why development action by the state generated conflicts and change. It subscribes to the view that a deeper understanding of conflicts and change is possible when particularising development in terms of actors, context and events. Large infrastructure projects appear to mirror what can be called the modernisation crisis. In more than one way, the crisis that confronts large development projects concerns perceived limitations in the state’s vision and strategies of change. There is a more sensitive understanding of side effects and externalities in the sociology of development action. Given the crisis and conflicts in the Sardar Sarovar Project, it is difficult to imagine possible ways forward. However, the authors use the three-dimensional conflict matrix—interest, norms and values—to project potential conflict-resolution mechanisms.
