Imagining the Good Life

This is a book of great originality that analyses cultural change and experience of development in terms of the pursuit of the a ~good lifea (TM) as a social process. While recent anthropological critiques of development highlight the importance of a ~local knowledgea (TM), this book argues that these critiques have not gone far enough, and suggests that a much more fundamental issue concerns the ends of development as seen from a more holistic, cultural perspective. Based on ethnographic research among an ethnic Tibetan community in the Nepal Himalaya, the book eloquently illustrates how the pursuit of the good life is inextricably tied to space and history, and demonstrates the relevance of ethno-historically generated conceptions of the a ~good lifea (TM) to the practice of development.