‘Hunger has brought us into this jungle’: understanding mobility and immobility of Bengali immigrants in the Chittagong Hills of Bangladesh

Siraj, Nasrin; Bal, Ellen

doi:10.1080/13504630.2017.1281443

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(33 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…No one is constantly in motion or constantly in stasis. Following others, we therefore move away from the immobility/mobility dichotomy (Glick Schiller and Salazar 2013;Siraj and Bal 2017). As Gutekunst et al (2016, p. 20) argue, "mobility is always bounded, regulated, mediated and intrinsically connected to forms of immobility and unequal power relations."…”

Section: Narratives On (Im)mobility and Environmental Changementioning

confidence: 93%

Keeping People in Place: Political Factors of (Im)mobility and Climate Change

Zickgraf

2019

Social Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While those 'trapped' or who choose to stay in areas affected by climate change represent a substantial policy issue, there only a small amount of empirical work specifically targeting such populations. The scant attention that is afforded to immobility often emphasizes financial constraints as factors driving (involuntary) immobility. As an essential part of the mobility spectrum, the complexity of immobility in crisis, including its political dimensions, warrants thorough investigation. In response to these gaps, this contribution locates environmental immobility within mobilities studies, its conceptual complexities, and, finally, illustrates the importance of political factors in shaping (im)mobilities. The findings are based on semi-structured interviews conducted in two developing countries experiencing the impacts of climate change. We delve into the socio-cultural and economic nature of (im)mobilities as they interact with political forces, specifically by exploring international bilateral agreements (Senegal) and a relocation program (Vietnam). In political spaces that are dominated by a desire to limit human mobility and (re)produce stasis, we challenge traditional dichotomies between mobile/immobile and sedentary/migration polices by underlining how policy interventions can simultaneously promote mobility and immobility, demonstrating complex co-existing mobilities. Keeping people in place can, in fact, mean allowing the very same people to move.

show abstract

Section: Narratives On (Im)mobility and Environmental Changementioning

confidence: 93%

Keeping People in Place: Political Factors of (Im)mobility and Climate Change

Zickgraf

2019

Social Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Like in other parts of the Hills, the Bengalis in this particular neighbourhood form a heterogeneous crowd not only because they hail from various parts of Bangladesh, but also because of their diverse socio-economic statuses and networks, differences in migration conditions and the corresponding rights to and restrictions from state services and social privileges, and variations in age and gender profiles (cf. Vertovec, 2007; see also Siraj and Bal 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“We are the True Citizens of This Country”

Bal

Siraj

2017

Asian J Soc Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Democracy has generally been understood the best remedy to prevent societal violence, as it gives different groups a channel to voice their interests and grievances. However, in this article, that focuses on the Chittagong Hills, which for many decades has formed one of the most violent spaces in Bangladesh, we argue that, in reality, democracy and violence can be two sides of the same coin. This is not to say that in Bangladesh, where full liberal democracy is not in place, ordinary citizens have no values and idea(l)s of democracy and citizenship. On the contrary, in order to make sense of the intricate connection between democratic idea(l)s, and violent imaginations and practices, we focus in particular on the process of what we call the vernacularisation of democratic politics. We connect this process to the appropriation of citizenship and nationalism, by ordinary but radically differently-positioned people, in their daily realities. We demonstrate that widely shared imaginations of Bangladeshi-ness, as Bengali-ness or Muslim-ness, and of Bengalis/Muslims as the true nation and citizens of Bangladesh, are intimately connected with popular understandings and practices of democracy, which are based on the exclusion of the not-genuine-Bengalis, with the legitimisation and continuation of violence, and the exclusion of ethnic minorities in the Chittagong Hills.

show abstract

“…Such differences proxy the fact that group representation by specific student organizations is not entirely different than what is practiced by their parental organization(s) outside university spaces, even if JNU student politics displays comparatively higher levels of social inclusiveness (Martelli and Parkar 2018). All in all, the transformations of South Asian democracies, and in particular their vernacularization (Michelutti 2008), are shared by campuses and wider dwelling spaces alike, irrespective of whether their political attributes point to political violence in Bangladesh (Bal and Siraj 2017;Suykens 2018) or Islamic identity in Pakistan (Nelson 2011). Martelli (2020: Figure1).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Generational Communities: Student Activism and the Politics of Becoming in South Asia

Martelli¹,

Garalytė²

2019

samaj

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The wide resonance of the aphorism, "from shadows to the stars," closing the 2016 suicide letter of lower caste student activist Rohith Vemula 1 suggests broken hopes for South Asian educated youth. It points at the tragic obstacles to political change and social upliftment experienced by many young people, reflecting a characteristic desire for individual and collective change. The astounding protests that ensued from Rohith's suicide in India are now contributing to the revival of scholarly interest in the formation of political attitudes among educated youth, subjecting the question of students' socialization into politics to academic scrutiny. Indeed, amidst the uncertain social, economic and political promises of the South Asian educational bulge, 2 contemporary politics in university spaces in South Asia has the potential of shaping youth as idiosyncratic generations. They are characterized not only by their aspirations for a better future, but also by their ability to experience collectively, yet in their own way, major political and social events. 2Making sense of this research agenda revival is core to this special issue's enquiry, which runs through ethnographic and historical insights of eight contributions, covering youths' experiments with politics in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. This introduction questions the relevance of student politics as an object of inquiry by asking whether it truly constitutes a field that is autonomous from wider organized politics. By interpreting student politics as political becoming, this collection of articles indicates that everyday campus-based activism is a potent vehicle for the (re)production of contemporary South Asian polity. Interrogations over the meaning of this "(re)"sprinkle the issue, as authors debate how student politics, understood as an experimental learning process of politics within a given educational space (Loader, Vromen and Xenos 2014) both produces and reproduces political imaginaries, cultural tropes and social hierarchies. While party politics is not always central in the conduct Generational Communities: Student Activism and the Politics of Becoming in So...

show abstract

‘Hunger has brought us into this jungle’: understanding mobility and immobility of Bengali immigrants in the Chittagong Hills of Bangladesh

Cited by 8 publications

References 32 publications

Keeping People in Place: Political Factors of (Im)mobility and Climate Change

Keeping People in Place: Political Factors of (Im)mobility and Climate Change

“We are the True Citizens of This Country”

Generational Communities: Student Activism and the Politics of Becoming in South Asia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About