Re-Conceptualising the 'Technology-Development' Nexus

This book chapter re-conceptualises the relationships between technology and development. It focuses on rural economic development and examines how water- and energy-related technologies interact with human-nature relationships. Drawing on case studies in Rajasthan, India, this chapter argues that people’s preferences for livelihoods can be incompatible with technological design. The unintended consequences of water and energy interventions can bring uncertainty to policy-making which affects long-term economic development and ecological sustainability. Changing governance structures in challenging caste and gender inequalities also require strong leadership. It proposes a ‘people-centred’ technological intervention framework which links the macro technical system and the micro process of people’s daily practices and subjectivities. In achieving this, it calls for a different approach to understanding human motivations, power dynamics and gender politics.