The Bangladesh Environmental Humanities Reader: Environmental Justice, Development Victimhood, and Resistance

by Samina Luthfa (Editor), Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan (Editor), Munasir Kamal (Editor), Rubiat Afrose (Contribution by), Taslima Akhter (Contribution by)

Overview

This volume analyses Bangladesh’s human-nature/environment relationships in terms of development victimhood, environmental injustices, and resistance of the marginalized. It demonstrates how the popular GDP-based economic growth model helps governments undertake “development” projects, threatening the environment and livelihood of the poor while benefiting the affluent. It represents the extant environmentalism in the literary works in Bangla, and tales of pollution, depletion; and human-nature/environment symbiosis that shows ways to resist victimhood. Against current environmental challenges and other environmental issues, this volume presents the epitome of how politics, biodiversity, and technology meet in many cross-cutting pathways.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498599146
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	08/23/2022
Series:	Environment and Society
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	306
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Samina Luthfa is associate professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Dhaka.

Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan is professor in the Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka.

Munasir Kamal is assistant professor in the Department of English, University of Dhaka.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures

Foreword by Scott Slovic

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Samina Luthfa, Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan, and Munasir Kamal

Part I: Industrialization, Urbanization, and Space

Part Ia: Environment and New Politics of Space

Chapter 1: Growth and Disaster: A Tale of Environmental Disaster in the Time of High Growth in Bangladesh

Anu Muhammad

Chapter 2: Co-management Approach for Nature/Forest Conservation, Corporate Interests, and the Nishorgo Support Project in Bangladesh

Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan

Chapter 3: Resisting a Coal Mine in Bangladesh and Immigrants in the United Kingdom: The New Agent/Actors in Transnational Environmental Politics

Samina Luthfa

Chapter 4: Pursuing Justice for All: Eviction and Environmental Injustice in Dhaka

Lutfun Nahar Lata

Chapter 5: Rohingya Influx: Impacts on Environment and Local Host Communities in Bangladesh

Mrittika Kamal

Part Ib: Hazardous Work Environment

Chapter 6: Iron Eaters: A Story of Scrapped Men

Fahmidul Haq

Chapter 7: Work Environment and Its Effect on Job Satisfaction in the Ready-Made Garments Industry in Bangladesh

Zahid ul Arefin Choudhury

Chapter 8: Death of a Thousand Dreams: A Photo Essay on the Rana Plaza Collapse and the Aftermath

Taslima Akhter

Part II: Water, Environment, and Victimhood

Chapter 9: Chokoria Sundarbans: A Forest without Trees

Philip Gain

Chapter 10: Critically Understanding Samta: A Tale of an Arsenic Affected Village

Fatema-Tuj-Juhra and Rubiat Afrose Raka

Chapter 11: Kaptai Dam Bor-Porong: The Human Cost of Dam and Development—An Account of Forced Migration

Monzima Haque

Chapter 12: Historicizing Kaptai Dam, Collective Trauma, and Political Awakening in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

Munasir Kamal and Mesbah Kamal

Part III: Ecocriticism and Creative Space for Environmental Justice

Chapter 13: Ecocentrism and Bauls: Lalon and Radharaman’s Meditative Activism

Golam Rabbani

Chapter 14: Rabindranath Tagore and Environmental Justice

Fakrul Alam

Chapter 15: Marginalization of Minorities and the Environment: Bibhutibhushan Bandapadhyay’s Pather Panchali and Aryanak

Shehreen Ataur Khan

Chapter 16: Reclaiming Voice: In Search of Space and Agency in Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay’s Hansuli Banker Upakatha

Sabrina Binte Masud

Chapter 17: Riverine Communities: A Study of Adwaita Mallabarman’s Titas Ekti Nadir Naam and Manik Bandopadhyay’s Padma Nadir Majhi

Qazi Arka Rahman and Faria Alam

Chapter 18: Unequal Justice: Ethnicity and Class in Mahasweta Devi’s Aranyer Adhikar and Selim Al Deen’s Bonopangshul

Soumya Sarker

Part IV: Biodiversity, Ecosystem, and Politics of Sustainability

Chapter 19: Plant Biodiversity Management for Nutritional Food Security in Bangladesh

Lutfur Rahman

Chapter 20: The UN Climate Change Conferences: An Investigative Study of the Shortcomings

Md. Rezwanul Haque Masud

About the Contributors

Editorial Reviews

Drawing together the work of contemporary Bangladeshi scholar-activists and ecocritical readings of classic works of Bengali literature, this unique collection brings a rich vein of work in political ecology and environmental humanities to a wider audience. Baul lyrics responding to the British colonial ‘poisoning’ of fertile lands are subjected to ecocritical readings alongside contemporary documentaries concerned with the toxic shipbreaking industry. The protagonists in classic Bengali novels who become implicated in destructive forest clearances can be read alongside scrutiny of contemporary ‘conservation’ alliances between donor agencies, oil multinationals, and international NG's. The historical breadth and disciplinary span of this work will be welcomed by many political ecologists and scholars of the environmental humanities.”

Paul Gilbert

"Bangladesh is at the confluence of the most critical challenges of our time: climate change, environmental and biodiversity degradation, population growth, forced migration, and the imperatives of economic development. This volume assembles a score of chapters by Bangladeshi scholars who employ a broad range of perspectives and cases to develop a compelling account of the environmental predicament of Bangladesh and the efforts of its citizens to survive, resist and overcome. These inspiring insights into the struggle to realize environmental justice in Bangladesh deserve to be widely read."

Christopher Rootes

It is beyond doubt that the edited volume will help policymakers, environmental activists, academics in field such as development, environment, environmental humanities and donor countries and organizations develop critical understanding of the environment and development issues in Bangladesh, which, in turn, will contribute to the growth of environmental humanities literature in the country. Finally, the book will add new dynamics on the scholarship of environmental humanities as it uniquely attempts to combine conventional environmental political issues with artistic outputs such as the photo essay and the film critique.

Environmental Politics