This article considers Munda-Muslim negotiations in the social and power context of the advent of new irrigation technology in contemporary Barind, Bangladesh. These negotiations have been made possible since the 1990s following the installation of deep tube wells (DTWs) for irrigation which enabled agricultural intensification of triple cropping. Irrigation water, rather than land, has thus become the focal point of socio-political negotiations over natural resources. Through an empirical study, this article argues that a new irrigation technology and a democratized institutional framework have enabled tenant farmers, notably the Munda-an Adibashi community-to negotiate water usage and labour contract in the Barind. It aims to demonstrate, first, the new forms of political negotiations that have become both necessary and possible for the Munda through the widening availability of water and other new technologies (such as introduction of a prepaid card system) and institutions that promoted public accountability and fairness; and second, the new cultural politics of competing Munda-Muslim moralities and how resource management projects created an image of a community.
This article is concerned with the meaning of education for Santal and Munda communities, living in the Barind region. The aim of this paper is to document the narratives of Adivasis’ on education. What do they mean by education? What kind of situation did they experience in formal education? How they respond to the existing form of education. The article is written based on ethnographic material drawn from 8/9 months of frequent visit in the field of study. Data was collected by using semi-structured questionnaire, observation and participation. To Adivasis of Santal and Munda communities, education means to fight the mainstream society back, to act confidently, erase the stereotypical images they are labelled by the dominant group, and to get freedom from poverty; aspirations to overcome the conditions of graduated sovereignty and cultural politics. To consider the qualitative matter of social mobility, namely the aspiration in both the individual and community levels, the article proposes to look beyond the existing dominant analytical frame of educational access and exclusion. The analytical tools were developed following Appadurai’s concept of aspiration and Ong’s idea of graduated sovereignty. This article is a critical assessment of the marginal communities’ formal education and development and will contribute to ethnographic intervention in social anthropology and development studies, and contemporary debate on politics of education.
Social Science Review, Vol. 37(2), Dec 2020 Page 1-26
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