Reconnecting Lives to the Land An Agenda for Critical Dialogue

This book speaks to recent attempts to link ""development"" with ""culture"" and to place ""progress,"" or ecological and social change, in local hands. It centers on the issue of dialogue and one researcher's modest attempts to develop dialogue as a tool for cultural change. The cultural change presented here is a pointed one and ""dialogue"" itself is purposefully focused. The underlying premise of the work is one in which land and ecology are central. Here it is recognized that conventional ""development,"" which claims material success while alienating humans from their own ecology, may be failing in social, psychological, and spiritual ways.The book also recognizes that many current discourses within the ""environmental community"" are bound to exclusive ideologies and are thus flawed as means of all-inclusive dialogue. It proposes that researchers use agriculture as a framework for discussion, debate, and dialogue on issues of environmental, economic, and cultural significance. Allison Hayes-Conroy is a candidate for a PhD in Geography at Clark University.