Psychosocial Pathways Towards a Sustainable Society

Abstract

This article focuses on a social intervention effort that has been going on for about 15 years to free a group of people who have been under debt bondage in rural India. They have worked as members of self-help groups (SHGs) and now are members of a producers’ company devoted to the cause of organic farming. The article investigates the role that is played by greed, altruism and social capital in sustainability perceptions of such villagers who only recently got exposed to the ways of an aspirational society. We found that greed and altruism played very little part in predicting sustainability perceptions, but social capital was a major predictor. While bonding social capital enhanced sustainability perception, bridging social capital reduced it. The results are understood in the overall social context of the Indian rural society and the social processes that unfolded during this intervention.