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The ubiquity of references to happiness and wellbeing indicates widespread anxiety that all may not be well, reflecting the erosion of the social in late capitalist modernity. The paper finds that, rather than helping to solve this problem, individualist formulations of wellbeing in policy mimic or deepen the underlying pathology. Drawing on empirical research in Zambia and India, it advocates an alternative approach, relational wellbeing, which is grounded in a relational ontology that can challenge dominant ideologies of the self, places central the generative quality of relationality which is critical to societal change and engenders a socially inclusive political vision.

Contemporary studies of marriage around the world note increased emphasis on 'choice' and 'conjugality'. In South Asia, such discussions have largely displaced an earlier focus on 'dowry' and its implications for the gendered vulnerability of women. This paper argues that considering together discourses of affinity and practices of dowry adds significantly to understanding of the complex inter-relations of social and economic change. Drawing on data from rural Bangladesh, it emphasises the materiality of marriage, its centrality to family advancement strategies and ongoing commitment to the governing idioms of masculine provision and protection. Against conventional views that dowry compensates for a perceived weakness in women's contribution, the paper argues that it functions to bolster men's. The contradictory faces of marriage as dowry or conjugality in South Asia may cast light on the broader political and economic transformations in which they arise.

AbstractThis paper reflects on the apparent 'paradox' of a contemporary Bangladesh that appears both 'more modern' and 'more Islamic', focusing on changes in the family (and the gender and generational orders that it embodies) as a central locus of anxiety and contestation. The paper begins with theory, how the paradox is framed by classical social science expectations of religious decline and how this has been contested by contemporary writers who describe specifically modern forms of piety. It then turns to Bangladesh, where highly publicized symbolic oppositions between 'religion' and 'development' contrast sharply with people's pragmatic accommodation of development goods in everyday life. Analysis of religious references in interview data reveal the co-existence of very different understandings: a more traditional view of religion as embedded in the moral order; and a more modern deliberate cultivation of a religious life. They also reveal how many of the uses which people make of religion are not specifically religious: to conjure a moral universe, to mark what is important to them, to say things about themselves. The final section returns to theory, reflecting on how this is informed by the findings from Bangladesh, and suggesting that the importance of the private and personal as a site for governance offers a further dimension of why the supposed 'paradox' of a religious modernity may not be so paradoxical after all.

While gender is highly visible in development theory and practice, race is rarely mentioned. This paper asks why this is, and how far Gender and Development (GAD) itself is implicated in the lack of recognition of race. The paper begins by acknowledging the complexity of the question: that race, gender and development are all contested terms and represent continuing sites of struggle. It then explores various aspects of 'race in GAD'. These include: the charge of cultural imperialism; the false simplicity in the labelling of 'women', which masks the very different terms on which 'third'and 'first'world women were 'brought into'development; and the failure of core GAD frameworks to recognize black feminist thought, so critically limiting their analytical power. The paper then goes on to discuss the racial marking of expertise in development and the ambivalent ways in which value is assigned through this. The paper concludes by reflecting on the interplay of identities in development planning and what this reveals of the implication of development more broadly in the construction of social difference.

AbstractThis paper considers the distinctiveness of children as development subjects and the challenges this poses to default development 'target group' approaches. It focuses on two key issues: the embeddedness of children within key relationships, and the transformative nature of age‐based difference. Rather than viewing adults and children as two fixed categories, it argues that multiple relations amongst and between adults and children comprise aspects of both mutual interest and contradiction, and are always implicated in power. Offering practical tools as well as conceptual discussion to explore these, overall it advocates a person‐centred, rather than category‐centred, approach to both analysis and practice. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

AbstractDrawing on primary research in development organizations and with working children themselves, this paper questions the logic of child rights, and its validity for the cultural context of Bangladesh. A strong stress on child rights at the programme level may not be sustainable and can have contradictory outcomes for poor children. Working children place a premium on the quality of relationships and show a strong sense of (in)justice and entitlement. This suggests 'child rights' work should re‐examine the cultural constitution of entitlements and responsibilities and how these intermesh with the material, social and political factors that make and keep children poor. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.