Local Sustainability

This edited volume emerges from a collective scholarly commitment to understanding sustainability not merely as an environmental imperative, but as a deeply human, cultural, and social project. Bringing together eighteen original contributions from researchers, practitioners, and academics across disciplines, the book interrogates the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the lived realities of communities in India and beyond – communities that are often at the margins of mainstream development discourse, yet are repositories of enduring knowledge, resilience, and creative adaptation. This is a polyphonic text, one that reflects the diversity of India's social landscape and the multiplicity of pathways toward a more just and sustainable world. It will be of value to students, researchers, policy practitioners, civil society actors, and all those who believe that the pursuit of the SDGs must be grounded in the realities, the struggles, and the wisdom of the communities it seeks to serve. About the Editors Dr. M Hilaria Soundari is a Professor and Head, Department of Applied Research, at The Gandhigram Rural Institute - Deemed to be University (GRI - DTBU), Tamil Nadu. Dr. A. Balakrishnan is working as a Senior Professor, Department of Applied Research at The Gandhigram Rural Institute (Deemed to be University), Gandhigram, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu. Dr. S. M. Karthik is working as a Guest Faculty in The Gandhigram Rural Institute, Tamil Nadu, and India. Dr. M. Gunasekaran is a Guest Faculty in the Department of Applied Research at The Gandhigram Rural Institute (Deemed to be University), Gandhigram, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu. Dr. S Dinesh Kumar is a Guest Faculty in the Department of Applied Research, Gandhigram Rural Institute – Deemed to be University, Dindigul. Dr. Jobi Babu is an Assistant Professor & Head in the Department of Social Work, Marian College Kuttikkanam (Autonomous), Kerala.