Intimate Economies of Development

"Aspirations, desires, opportunism and exploitation are fundamental elements of the ways in which donor-driven development intervenes in the lives of people in poor countries. Alongside structural and material interventions, emotional engagements are central to processes of social change and the making of selves for those caught up in development's slipstream. Intimate Economies of Development: Mobility, Sexuality and Health in Asia elaborates this proposition by showing that culture, sexuality and health are inevitably and inseparably linked within specific trajectories of modernization in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. As mobility and migration increase and opportunities proliferate throughout Asia, different cultural groups increasingly interact as a result of both targeted interventions and all-consuming trends of socio-economic change; but they do so with different capabilities and expectations. This book engages with issues of moral frameworks and sexual rights discourses but uniquely grounds its arguments in interlocking details of people's everyday lives and aspirations in developing Asia. Part and parcel of this widening landscape of mobility and contingent intimacy is the ever-present threats of infectious disease, most prominently HIV/AIDS, and people-trafficking. Thus, impact assessment and targeted interventions aiming to address negative consequences frequently accompany infrastructure development. This path-breaking book, drawn on more than 20 years of ethnographic research in the Mekon region, shows clearly how current models of mitigation are inadequate as subjective experiences and aspirations are profoundly enmeshed in strategies of livelihood improvement. "-- "Alongside structural and material interventions, emotional engagements are central to processes of social change and the making of selves for those caught up in development's slipstream. This book elaborates this proposition by showing that culture, sexuality and health are inevitably and inseparably linked within specific trajectories of modernization in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. It documents ways that rapid economic integration plays itself out in diverse communities through the types of interpersonal relationships promoted by market expansion and spreading neo-liberal sensibilities"--