This book brings to the forefront the significance of local everyday economic practices to development policymaking. Chowdhury's objective in unearthing these diverse activities is two-fold. She demonstrates why it is a misrepresentation to characterize all that is economic as "capitalism". Additionally, she contends that in those instances of rupture where local economic practices break into dominant narratives of the economy, we catch a glimpse of what James Scott has referred to as the "hidden transcripts" of alternative epistemologies. Chowdhury argues that the normative content of these other epistemological frameworks provide us with alternative ways to conceptualize economic development as something other than industrialization, urbanization and environmental degradation as experienced by the West.
