When a society fragments into parts, they become free-floating entities resulting in the disappearance of a holistic view arising from an integrated core. Similar is the case with issues related to social development wherein a skewed narrative determines the overall contours of development.

Creating a nuanced narrative on the quality of life of the "poor" has become the arrogant mission of development practitioners, with global strategies and policies targeting this topic. However, the dominant discourse follows an approach espousing universal narratives that subsumes the local. Owing to the dominance of meta-narratives of development, local narratives tend to be suppressed. This is the reason Mark Hobart terms the dominant narrative of development ‘growth of ignorance’ in his book, Growth of Ignorance: Anthropological Critique of Knowledge.

Given the complexity involved in defining poverty, there is a dire need for rethinking and reinterpretation in the domain of poverty eradication programmes, with the community at the center -- with all of their natural, social and intellectual capital. The starting point for gauging poverty ought to be critically raising the question: Does the mainstream I/NGOs bring a neo-colonial and prescriptive model of development which, instead of activating the true potential of a community, further hampers their potential of self-realisation.

The exploration of seamy side of meta-narrative of development will enable us to develop an understanding which, instead of taking local communities as a clean slate for "projects", will take their life worlds into consideration. This will pave the way for the emergence of indigenous narratives of development which re-centres the community’s own desire for liberation. In the words of Paulo Freire, "The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their liberation."

Furthermore, the complexity of poverty cannot be mapped within dominant paradigms of economic growth and ‘progress’ which rides roughshod over needs and aspirations of local communities living on the peripheries of power centres. When the aspirations of local communities dissipates within development projects, a habitus comes into being in which parasitical mindset flourishes. Speaking about these parasitical motives in development, Kamil Khan Mumtaz claims, "The crisis of our time is not for somebody else to solve but a matter of our very own existence and survival; it is rooted in our homes and in our lives."

Holistically speaking, poverty is an intersectional phenomenon, cutting across economic capital, social constructs like gender and shame, and ethnic rivalries. Tools of measurement now employed in the global development arena should be refined in keeping with local contexts which re-define their own parameters. Therefore, highly localised strategies need to be developed where gender, food security, and climate change will intersect in tackling poverty at the local level.

For instance, if women become aware of their decision making powers, they could participate, and consequentially lead the local committees built for social security. Self-awareness would interact with social security. Isolation between the personal and social will not yield desired results. Seen this way, the personal becomes social.

The main challenge to understand the processes of life world is the epistemic constructs that try to see the order of things through the categories that stem from particular power relations in different context but employed to understand "others" by underestimating local power relations and worldview.

This creates an anachronist approach from which lived experience disappears, and development practitioners rely more on rules invented by the dominant discourse. Often, this is a highly politicised discourse as it, in the words of Arundhati Roy, "interferes with local peoples’ movements that have traditionally been self-reliant. NGOs have funds that can employ local people who might otherwise be activists in resistance movements, but now can feel they are doing some immediate, creative good (and earning a living while they’re at it)."

This is the reason Ivan Illich in his book, The Celebration of Awareness rejects judging development from such a narrative. He is of the view that "Development is not judged against a rule but against an experience. And this experience is not available through the study of tables but through the celebration of shared experience: dialogue, controversy, play, poetry, -- in short, self-realisation in creative leisure."

However, the efforts for self-realisation in local settings have been hampered by hegemonic forces that not only change the lifestyle, but also mutate the ways of seeing oneself and assessing indigenous social capital. This change of ways of seeing appears in the shape of efforts to adapt to the notions whose epistemic foundations are based on binary opposition -- developed versus underdeveloped, civilised versus uncivilised, and centre versus periphery.

The stark binaries become glaringly visible in societies which are exposed to market forces without developing required social and human capital to negotiate change. The centre-periphery theory states that the rural is in constant dialogue with the centre, which in turn shapes their concepts and ideals of ‘growth’. Here, the primary purpose of social development is to further local communities to achieve a critical mass; propelling them to a trajectory of critical engagement with modernisation, and not the model prescribed as a magic wand to resolve all complexities through one formula for all.

In this context, there is a need for a reflexive model of growth, based on the community’s own potentials, defined and rising from within. Qualitative studies focusing on questions like "what is my dream for myself, and for my community?" would attempt to reflexively deepen the personal and collective; subverting the role of the NGO to become a receiving ground accommodating new ideals of development.

In the power structure of today’s world, structural violence of the global hegemonies is experienced first and foremost by the woman in poverty. Her well-being is dependent on the success and self-image of the men in her household, and men view economic capital as the key to their success. In this way, the female subaltern is subject of a two-fold discourse -- one of her male counterpart, and the other the dominant paradigm of growth. In this way, the body and heart of a woman in a rural context becomes the site of structural violence and control.

Sustainable models of development maintain a stronghold within the imagination of the community if they are not limited to a "projectisation" approach which is dependent on funds and deadlines. Collective humanist goals, if shared effectively between the NGO and the community, become the indicators for growth and self-realisation.

In a qualitative study carried out by the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) in Yarkhun, Chitral, interviewees referred to the 2015 flood which completely destroyed their water channel. "It was through collective efforts of the community members that the damage was repaired" and "ethnic differences did not cause discrimination" remains a claim that shows collective action and self-reliance.

There is common maxim in Brushashki language that says, "When I had teeth I didn’t have bread, now I have bread but don’t have teeth." It basically recalls a time of poverty when there was resiliency of the body, and in metaphoric extension, the social structure despite scarcity of resources. Now, there is abundance of options for the insatiable consumer, however, the capacity to withhold this change and resiliency of the social fabric has disintegrated. The desire for wholeness; the ability to synthesize disintegrated fragments is the right of all people, and it is this basic human capacity that development practitioners must maintain within their guiding principles.