The desire for development - often defined vaguely, working as a catch-all term for economic growth, social welfare, and socialistic redistribution of resources- has been intimately linked to the construction of the idea of a `Malayalee People' as a distinct socio-cultural entity in the...

The paper tries to unsettle the naturalized association often assumed in the existent literature between the modern family and the small family in 20 th century Malayalee society. Instead, it attempts to trace out the shaping of certain life-options in discourse from the mid-19th century onwards...