This is a powerful feminist critique of the 'Western' concept of development. It is also an attempt to rediscover and rehabilitate traditional indigenous knowledge as an important basis for empowering women and re-establishing the foundation of reciprocity in North-South dialogue.
The author looks at the wreckage "progress" has wreaked on the lives of Thai sex workers and of indigenous peoples globally and contrasts this with a portrait - in words and pictures - of her own "undeveloped" mother, 'gardener, agriculturalist, cook, entertainer, tool and toy inventor and maker, traditional...