The Bangladesh Environmental Humanities Reader: Environmental Justice, Development Victimhood, and Resistance: Rubiat Afrose: Lexington Books

The Bangladesh Environmental Humanities Reader

Environmental Justice, Development Victimhood, and Resistance

The Bangladesh Environmental Humanities Reader

Environmental Justice, Development Victimhood, and Resistance

Description

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.

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

Product details

Published	Aug 29 2022
Format	Hardback
Edition	1st
Extent	320
ISBN	9781498599139
Imprint	Lexington Books
Illustrations	21 b/w illustrations; 2 tables; 1 textboxes;
Dimensions	238 x 157 mm
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Anthology Editor

Samina Luthfa

Anthology Editor

Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan

Anthology Editor

Munasir Kamal

Contributor

Rubiat Afrose

Contributor

Taslima Akhter

Contributor

Fakrul Alam

Contributor

Faria Alam

Contributor

Zahid ul Arefin Choudhury

Contributor

Philip Gain

Contributor

Fahmidul Haq

Contributor

Monzima Haque

Contributor

Fatema Tuj-Juhra

Contributor

Mesbah Kamal

Contributor

Mrittika Kamal

Contributor

Munasir Kamal

Contributor

Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan

Contributor

Shehreen Ataur Khan

Contributor

Lutfun Nahar Lata

Contributor

Samina Luthfa

Contributor

Md. Rezwanul Haque Masud

Contributor

Sabrina Masud

Contributor

Anu Muhammad

Contributor

Golam Rabbani

Contributor

Lutfur Rahman

Contributor

Qazi Arka Rahman

Contributor

Soumya Sarker

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, University of Kent
“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 NGOs. The historical breadth and disciplinary span of this work will be welcomed by many political ecologists and scholars of the environmental humanities.”

Paul Gilbert, University of Sussex
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