A Knowledge Perspective on the Gandhian Model of Development

A talk by Amit Basole at Azim Premji University
About the Topic
In this talk Basole will discuss Mahatma Gandhi's legacy as a "knowledge activist," someone who engages in a politics of knowledge and challenges knowledge hierarchies, in the process carrying material struggles to an epistemic plain. Gandhi did this in his time by advancing ideas such as khadi, gramudyog, and swadeshi, and privileging lokavidya (knowledge of the "uneducated") over "modern Science." Basole will argue that the thinking behind these ideas still remains relevant, indeed is urgently needed, in the age of mobiles and the Internet.
About the Speaker
Amit Basole is Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he teaches Development Economics and Political Economy. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a PhD in Neurobiology from Duke University. His research areas are political economy of class and gender in developing societies, the economics of indigenous and traditional knowledge and Gandhi's economic thought.