Investigating the ways development strategies have affected traditional cultural values and social practices, this scholarly and imaginative collection of essays critically examines the role of Western technology in development. The contributors include S. Marglin, A. Appadurai, A. Nandy, S. Viswanathan, F. Apffel Marglin, and T. Banuri.

Women, a majority of the world's population, receive only a small proportion of its opportunities and benefits. According to the 1993 UN Human Development Report, there is no country in the world in which women's quality of life is equal to that of men. This examination of women's quality of life addresses questions which have a particular urgency, and aims to describe the basic situation of all women. The contributors confront the issue of cultural relativism, criticizing the approach which, in its desire to respect different cultural traditions, can result in indifference to injustice....

This volume seeks to answer the question of how the Buddhist monks in today's Sri Lanka-given Buddhism's traditionally nonviolent philosophy-are able to participate in the fierce political violence of the Sinhalese against the Tamils.

The twentieth century has seen people displaced on an unprecedented scale and has brought concerns about refugees into sharp focus. There are forty million refugees in the world--1 in 130 inhabitants of this planet. In this first interdisciplinary study of the issue, fifteen scholars from diverse fields focus on the worldwide disruption of "trust" as a sentiment, a concept, and an experience.

Contributors provide a rich array of essays that maintain a delicate balance between providing specific details of the refugee experience and exploring corresponding theories of trust and mistrust....