ABSTRACT
The postmodern approach to analyse development as discourse needs to deal with multiple and ever-changing realities and narratives produced by different actors in different locations and, hence, to construct it as homogeneous is theoretically contradictory. This chapter deals with general discussion on the adivasis as marginal people–the marginality that has been created as a problem both in the colonial discourse of anthropology and the modern practices of development endeavours. It explores the help of multi-sited ethnography, the space of marginality, a space produced mostly by the development and transformative endeavours of the state and market and how adivasis cope with it and articulate alternatives. The chapter examines marginality as much more than a space of deprivation. It discusses a critical discourse analysis of development which in fact has not only dominated the life-worlds of the marginalized but also produced ‘underdevelopment’ and marginality. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
