Even as a researcher in DEC, I’ve always been interested in stories. My early critique of the market-based Chilean social programs of the 1980s focused on dissonant narratives among various groups of Chileans – the “Chicago Boys” saw national history as a liberation from communism to market freedom, but the coup-plotting generals told a redemptive account of a return to traditional values. These alternative stories had significant consequences for the ways in which reforms in education, health care, and pensions were implemented in Chile.
My research on the Brazilian and South African responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis also described rival stories. In Brazil, the government policies were vigorous because the disease was seen to be continuous with the anti-authoritarian, pro-democratic struggle: In the same way that activists overcame military repression, they would overcome stigma, persecution, and disregard. In South Africa, the government neglected the crisis for many years because the apartheid regime had constructed a national political community based on racial categories, and the new democratic government worried about the reputational costs on the group when addressing HIV/AIDS.
Human rights, which I studied as well, are fundamentally about the way people think and talk about themselves, about the emergence of a new sense of dignity that transforms one’s outlook from “I need” to “I deserve.” This change in outlook has real impacts on people’s access to health care and education.
So when I left the World Bank, it seemed natural to work on stories directly. My debut novel, For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus, winner of the 2024 Carol Trawick prize, will be published in October. It tells the story of two young, progressive-minded individuals who convince themselves that the tradition of arranged marriage makes sense for them. The story, in brief, goes like this: Disillusioned with modern romance, globe-trotting Meena tries an arranged marriage with Avi, an aspiring politician in Ohio. But when Avi’s political opponent launches racist attacks, Meena and Avi are forced to defend their immigrant community, which narrowly understands its own traditions, and protect their increasingly shaky relationship. Reviewers call the novel an intimate, funny, and heartbreaking story about small-town America, the Indian diaspora, and the politics of marriage.
Eventually, Meena and Avi learn that their stories, about themselves and their marriage, need to change. At a micro-level, they go through the same process of struggle, pain, self-discovery, and new storytelling that the societies we work with go through, as for instance when Chile started to moderate its breakneck privatization (and rethink Pinochet’s legacy), or when South Africa became one of the most progressive jurisdictions for social rights litigation in the world.
My last job at the Bank was to co-lead the Mind, Behavior, and Development Unit (eMBeD), our behavioral science unit, which grew out of my role as Co-Director of the 2015 World Development Report: Mind, Society, and Behavior. Behavioral scientists know our identities matter greatly for our choices. It’s something I believe deeply, both as a social scientist and a novelist.
* Varun Gauri was formerly Senior Economist in the Development Research Group (DECRG) of the World Bank and co-Director of the 2015 WDR on “Mind, Society, and Behavior”. He is currently Lecturer in Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.
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KEYWORDS Behavioral Science, Books, DEC, Narrative Economics, Novel, World Development Report
Looking forward to reading this.