Paper short abstract:

This paper is the result of a year long ethnography conducted in a village that is changing as a result of its interaction with the state. In its turn, the community has a profound role in shaping the state's own policy because the interaction created capacities that the community could leverage.

Paper long abstract:

Gross National Happiness (GNH) is a development approach that recognises the diversity of ends in human life, or what can be called value systems. A desirable outcome within the GNH paradigm is conceived as a way of life, which enjoys material sufficiency that are in harmony with what the environment can sustainably provide, and what is consistent with cultural values and practices of the people. At a philosophical level, this approach is close to the way of life in Bongo, a marginal village in the border regions of Bhutan. However, when implemented as policy practice, the planning system in Bhutan undermines the very values that it promotes at a philosophical level. This happens because unlike GNH as a 'philosophy', which is indigenous to Bhutan and which is informed by global discourses on sustainable and desirable practices, GNH as a 'planning system' in Bhutan is borrowed from elsewhere, and so heavily influenced by them. Thus, instead of upholding Bongo's development culture and practices as ideal outcomes, it has to undermine them in order to achieve harmony with its system imperatives. This paper is the outcome of a year's ethnographic fieldwork conducted as part of a doctoral project and the ethnographer's background in policy analysis and development theories. The presentation of ethnographic materials revolves around a single person who is concurrently a member of the Bongo community and a part of the state development apparatus, thus inhabiting and negotiating two 'value arenas'.