- Fulda University of Applied Science, Social and Cultural Sciences, Faculty Memberadd
- Geography, Human Geography, Political Geography and Geopolitics, Political Geography, Urban Geography, Cultural Geography, and 46 moreSpace and Place, Actor Network Theory, Historical Geography, Political Philosophy, Research Methodology, International Relations, Human Rights, International Law, Nationalism, Critical Theory, Conflict, Colonialism, Michel Foucault, Imperialism, Empire, Spatial Analysis, Indian studies, Space, Peacebuilding, Geography of Mobility and Migrations, Citizenship Theory, Giorgio Agamben, Borders and Frontiers, Border Studies, Borders and Borderlands, Critical Geography, Geopolitics, Ethnography, Resistance (Social), Citizenship, India Bangladesh relations, Abandonment, Vulnerability, Enclaves, Social Sciences, South Asian Studies, South Asia, Social Geography, Mobility/Mobilities, James C. Scott, Gayatri Spivak, Engin Isin, Reza Aslan, Partha Chatterjee, Territory, and Sex Work/sex Workers Rightsedit
Plastic, an offer of modernity, has become one of the essential parts of our everyday life. However, it is presenting a massive threat in altered forms, to our health and environment. Plastic does not only pollute the surface environment,... more
Plastic, an offer of modernity, has become one of the essential parts of our everyday life. However, it is presenting a massive threat in altered forms, to our health and environment. Plastic does not only pollute the surface environment, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, but toxic elements released from plastics also percolate down the surface and contaminate groundwater, which we often use as ‘safe’ drinking water. This probable future risk is deeply rooted in the entire governance infrastructure of plastic waste which could potentially lead to contamination of groundwater. Thus, a state-sponsored ‘safe drinking water’ initiative could contrarily produce a ‘risk society’. A recent study finds 81% of tap water samples collected worldwide contained plastic pollutants, which means that annually we may be ingesting between 3000 and 4000 microparticles of plastic from tap water. Based on review, ethnographic observations and interviews, and lived experience in a plastic-wrapped city (...
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Sociology, Gender Studies, Social Sciences, Mobility/Mobilities, Social and Cultural Anthropology, and 13 moreUrban Planning, Gender and Sexuality, South Asia, Feminism, Sex Work, Urban Sociology, Multidisciplinary, Mobilities Studies, Mobilities, Right to the city, Article, Dhaka, and Visibility/invisibility
Research Interests: Sociology, Gender Studies, Social Sciences, Mobility/Mobilities, Social and Cultural Anthropology, and 13 moreUrban Planning, Gender and Sexuality, South Asia, Feminism, Sex Work, Urban Sociology, Multidisciplinary, Mobilities Studies, Mobilities, Right to the city, Article, Dhaka, and Visibility/invisibility
Plastic, an offer of modernity, has become one of the essential parts of our everyday life. However, it is presenting a massive threat in altered forms, to our health and environment. Plastic does not only pollute the surface environment,... more
Plastic, an offer of modernity, has become one of the essential parts of our everyday life. However, it is presenting a massive threat in altered forms, to our health and environment. Plastic does not only pollute the surface environment, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, but toxic elements released from plastics also percolate down the surface and contaminate groundwater, which we often use as ‘safe’ drinking water. This probable future risk is deeply rooted in the entire governance infrastructure of plastic waste which could potentially lead to contamination of groundwater. Thus, a state-sponsored ‘safe drinking water’ initiative could contrarily produce a ‘risk society’. A recent study finds 81% of tap water samples collected worldwide contained plastic pollutants, which means that annually we may be ingesting between 3000 and 4000 microparticles of plastic from tap water. Based on review, ethnographic observations and interviews, and lived experience in a plastic-wrapped city (...
Research Interests:
Drawing on ethnography, this paper unravels the intricate relationship between survival tactics and legal status in the complex process of survival mobility in the ungoverned enclaves of India and Bangladesh. In doing so, I explicate the... more
Drawing on ethnography, this paper unravels the intricate relationship between survival tactics and legal status in the complex process of survival mobility in the ungoverned enclaves of India and Bangladesh. In doing so, I explicate the spaces of survival of the undocumented enclave dwellers. The survival mobility in the enclave shows how states’ construction of legal immobility in effect compels illegal mobility. Besides, enclave dwellers’ survival mobility neither symbolises liberty nor characterises resistance. Rather, it represents a form of vulnerability, concern and unavoidable necessity. These practices show a nuanced understanding of the politics of mobility need to consider legality and tactics as two very essential factors for assessing the movement of individuals.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Drawing on ethnography, this paper conceptualizes invisible mobilities by exploring the linkages between mobility, invisibility and hotel and residence based sex work in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Since both are illegal in Bangladesh, hotel and... more
Drawing on ethnography, this paper conceptualizes invisible mobilities by exploring the linkages between mobility, invisibility and hotel and residence based sex work in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Since both are illegal in Bangladesh, hotel and residence based sex workers (HRSWs) become targets of the different laws and sex work related social stigma. We show, in this paper, how invisible mobilities is used to strategize and counter-enact against the existing exploitative gendered socio-political-legal regimes and practices involved in sex work. Invisible mobilities refers to the way HRSWs move in order to hide their occupation from society and the law. Invisibility is at the core of all these connections: It enables HRSWs to continue sex work and avoid exclusion from family and members of their communities. While making themselves invisible permits them to continue their daily ways to earn a living, it also reinforces the same social stigma they are constantly trying to avoid. In doing so, this paper reveals the political economy of sex work in the city and provides a new theoretical window to understand the connections between gender, mobility and the city, constructing a bridge between mobility and sex work studies literature.
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The September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington triggered a series of immediate, enduring and varied responses from nations to secure their sovereign territories from terrorist attacks or terrorism. At the same time, different... more
The September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington triggered a series of immediate, enduring and varied responses from nations to secure their sovereign territories from terrorist attacks or terrorism. At the same time, different regional organisations are also taking additional regional security measures. Since then the EU and the NAFTA have taken Counter-Terrorism Action Plan and security strategies to face new security threats. Therefore, the 9/11 event forced a reassessment of vulnerabilities and the realisation of the benefits of cooperation rather than unilateralism. The event of 9/11 is also significant for South Asia. In the post-9/11 reality, the region became the epicentre of the fight against international terrorism, and the region is experiencing sharp rise in terrorist activities including bomb blasts. Hence, SAARC is concluding different agreements or adopting safeguard measures to stop terrorism. In such context, this paper analyses South Asian security concerns in the post-9/11 period and the SAARC initiatives in response to new security environment. It also focuses on the implementation process of different regional security measures and problems in quest for a new approach to security.
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Globally, trafficking is now a thriving and multi-billion dollar business run by organised criminal networks. An estimated 8, 00,000 women and children are trafficked each year across international borders, 80 percent ending in forced sex... more
Globally, trafficking is now a thriving and multi-billion dollar business run by organised criminal networks. An estimated 8, 00,000 women and children are trafficked each year across international borders, 80 percent ending in forced sex work. Although awareness is increasing, human trafficking still lack a global understanding of the subject, what United Nations Office on Drug and Crime identifies as 'a knowledge crisis about a crime that shames us all'. Bangladesh is predominantly an origin country for victims of trafficking while India is an origin, transit and destination country for this organised crime. In this context, Bangladesh-India border, the fifth longest land border of the world, is intensively used for women and girls trafficking in South Asia. The traffickers capitalise on complex political landscape of the border and borderland, poor border control mechanisms and lack of joint efforts to stop human trafficking. This paper contributes to the efforts to prevent human trafficking along this border. The main thrust of this article is to address the routes and networks of trafficking at the Bangladesh-India border, which is poorly addressed in academic writing. Here, this paper highlights on the aspects of human trafficking along this border and prioritises on joint initiatives by the border guards to reduce the magnitude of human trafficking significantly.
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Drawing on conceptualization of statelessness and ethnographic research on crucial insights of rightessness, this paper investigates how the politico-geographic-legality constructs statelessness in the enclaves in India and Bangladesh.... more
Drawing on conceptualization of statelessness and ethnographic research on crucial insights of rightessness, this paper investigates how the politico-geographic-legality constructs statelessness in the enclaves in India and Bangladesh. Following the decolonization process in 1947, both India and Pakistan/Bangladesh inherited more than 200 enclaves, which comprise 80 per cent of the world's enclaves. With improved bilateral relations, India and Bangladesh officially exchanged the enclaves on 1 August 2015, and the enclave dwellers will gradually be granted citizenship rights over the next few years. In this period of transition from statelessness to statehood, this paper can be read as contemporary history. This paper will draw attention to three aspects of statelessness. First, conceptualization of statelessness not only applies to the refugeehood or de-territorialization of people but also relates to the process of constructing transterritorial stateless people. Second, this paper will discuss the condition of statelessness constructed in a politico-geographic-legal trap. And finally, the paper calls for a wider empirical and critical focus on the hidden geographies of de facto statelessness.
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Drawing on ethnography, this paper unravels the intricate relationship between survival tactics and legal status in the complex process of survival mobility in the ungoverned enclaves of India and Bangladesh. In doing so, I explicate the... more
Drawing on ethnography, this paper unravels the intricate relationship between survival tactics and legal status in the complex process of survival mobility in the ungoverned enclaves of India and Bangladesh. In doing so, I explicate the spaces of survival of the undocumented enclave dwellers. The survival mobility in the enclave shows how states’ construction of legal immobility in effect compels illegal mobility. Besides, enclave dwellers’ survival mobility neither symbolises liberty nor characterises resistance. Rather, it represents a form of vulnerability, concern and unavoidable necessity. These practices show a nuanced understanding of the politics of mobility need to consider legality and tactics as two very essential factors for assessing the movement of individuals.
Research Interests:
Drawing on ethnography in the enclaves in India and Bangladesh, this paper explores a multifaceted yet enduring relationship between citizenship, abandonment and resistance. Following the partition in 1947, the enclave residents’... more
Drawing on ethnography in the enclaves in India and Bangladesh, this paper explores a multifaceted yet enduring relationship between citizenship, abandonment and resistance. Following the partition in 1947, the enclave residents’ citizenry was enacted like other Indian or Bangladeshi citizens’ disregarding these enclaves’ trans-territorial reality. This paper will demonstrate that enclave dwellers did not live in the ‘citizenship gap’, the difference between rights and benefits of citizenship, rather they lived without any citizenship rights. Life in these enclaves was highly complex and experiences in the enclaves challenge the usefulness of citizenship as a universal framework of analysis for the people who are ranked as citizen but never have it. In this context, a combination of the reverse conceptualisation such as citizenship and Agamben’s conceptualisation of abandonment not only allows for these dimensions of lived experiences to be addressed and explored, it also focuses on the temporal aspect of citizenship implicated in politics. Finally, the paper calls for widening the consideration of the empirical study on everyday citizenship practices and experiences around the globe to extend and intensify the citizenship literatures.
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Human Geography, Political Geography and Geopolitics, Social Geography, Social Sciences, and 12 moreEthnography, Border Studies, South Asian Studies, South Asia, Resistance (Social), Vulnerability, Political Geography, Citizenship, Borders and Borderlands, India Bangladesh relations, Abandonment, and Georgio Agamben
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Based on an ethnography of the enclaves in India and Bangladesh, this paper explores enclave dwellers lived experiences of vulnerability where life is trapped in-between two states. These enclaves are geographically located in one country... more
Based on an ethnography of the enclaves in India and Bangladesh, this paper explores enclave dwellers lived experiences of vulnerability where life is trapped in-between two states. These enclaves are geographically located in one country but politically and legally belong to another. The absence of a home country's rule of law and the irregular presence of the host country's sovereign power and control construct, in Giorgio Agamben's terms, a ‘space of exception’ where everyday life is characterised by exclusion from legal rights, but nonetheless subject to law, socio-political exploitation and gendered violence. By situating Agamben's ‘bare life’ in these enclaves, this paper argues that the conceptualisation of bare life as solely a sovereign production paints an inadequate picture of the zone of abandonment. The paper argues that in addition to the sovereign creation of bare life, social and gendered dimensions are essential for a nuanced approach to this concept.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This chapter presents the changing situation of female workers in the Ready-Made Garment industry (RMG) and the beauty parlor sector in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, as an outcome of the COVID-19-virus/crisis. Both sectors... more
This chapter presents the changing situation of female workers in the Ready-Made Garment industry (RMG) and the beauty parlor sector in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, as an outcome of the COVID-19-virus/crisis. Both sectors predominantly employ women. Here, we trace the trail of responses that COVID-19 has provoked for women working in the RMG and in the beauty parlor sector. In trying to make sense of the responses and outcomes produced by COVID-19, we found that the situation in Bangladesh can be seen as a period of liminality . COVID-19 has created a liminal space in which various types of relations (work, family, ethnic, belonging to the city) are being reshuffled and interrupted. This manifests in the reinforcement of work-related exploitation and patriarchy.
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Drawing on ethnography and retrospective memories of peoples’ journey across the India-Bangladesh border, this chapter seeks to understand corrupt spaces and flows – process of their migration decision, networks, destinations, challenges,... more
Drawing on ethnography and retrospective memories of peoples’ journey across the India-Bangladesh border, this chapter seeks to understand corrupt spaces and flows – process of their migration decision, networks, destinations, challenges, expectations and survival strategies in everyday life. The focus on journeying and methods of illegal and provisional migration from one country’s coastal zone to other country’s megacities can represent corrupt spaces from three perspectives - organised network of illegal migration, corrupt organizations at different scales and locations, and different bubbles of economies embedded in it. In doing so, this research shows the ‘circuits’ of corrupt spaces and economic activities through short-term and circulatory migration.
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Research Interests: History, Sociology, Public Sociology, Social Change, Social Movements, and 15 moreGeography, Anthropology, Peasant Studies, Political Science, Revolutions, Resistance (Social), Social Activism, Autonomy, Militant Research, Social Ecology, Intersectionality, Civil Society, Climate Justice, Decolonization, and Antiglobalization Social Movements
In the last half a century, the search for a Bangladeshi national identity has been driven and contested by different forces and political imageries. This paper looks at the interrelations between nation-building policies and... more
In the last half a century, the search for a Bangladeshi national identity has been driven and contested by different forces and political imageries. This paper looks at the interrelations between nation-building policies and social-movement activism. Since its independence in 1971, the country has been caught up in debates surrounding Bengali, Bangladeshi, and Muslim identities and activism in its nationbuilding process, leading to multiple exclusions along ethnic, religious, gender, and class lines. Identity formation in postcolonial society has mainly relied on constructing majority populations with shared commonalities, such as religion, language, heritage, or social traditions. We show how state initiatives in crafting a so-called natural identity and homogeneity in the name of nation-building have turned into counterproductive and politically profit-oriented projects, masking inequalities and persecution. We propose that achieving a sophisticated understanding of the nationbuilding process requires paying attention to the causes, outcomes, and influences of social and political movements. We also posit that nation-building is a protracted process of political integration that often remains unfinished, even decades after a nation has gained its independence.
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Over the last two decades, Bangladesh has experienced a dramatic shift in terms of female rural–urban migration, often referred to as the feminization of migration. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research on young female migrants’... more
Over the last two decades, Bangladesh has experienced a dramatic shift in terms of female rural–urban migration, often referred to as the feminization of migration. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research on young female migrants’ livelihood experiences in Dhaka and Gazipur, this article makes three contributions to the migration and mobilities literature. First, while migration often constitutes an adequate tool for resolving desperation, it may also cause an aspiration-desperation trap. Secondly, the transformative potential of migration and mobility for changing social relations of class and gender is not always as effective as it is argued. Lastly, by focusing on the temporalities of migrants’ circumstances, we argue that migration is a continuous process in which mobility and immobility are deeply entangled.
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Plastic, an offer of modernity, has become one of the essential parts of our everyday life. However, it is presenting a massive threat in altered forms, to our health and environment. Plastic does not only pollute the surface environment,... more
Plastic, an offer of modernity, has become one of the essential parts of our everyday life. However, it is presenting a massive threat in altered forms, to our health and environment. Plastic does not only pollute the surface environment, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, but toxic elements released from plastics also percolate down the surface and contaminate groundwater, which we often use as ‘safe’ drinking water. This probable future risk is deeply rooted in the entire governance infrastructure of plastic waste which could potentially lead to contamination of groundwater. Thus, a state-sponsored ‘safe drinking water’ initiative could contrarily produce a ‘risk society’. A recent study finds 81% of tap water samples collected worldwide contained plastic pollutants, which means that annually we may be ingesting between 3000 and 4000 microparticles of plastic from tap water. Based on review, ethnographic observations and interviews, and lived experience in a plastic-wrapped city (Dhaka), this paper sheds light on the complex interface of plastic, water, and public health, on the relevance of Beck’s ‘risk society’ to understand this complexity, and on replicating the idea of ‘risk society’ in the case of Bangladesh. Through understanding the plastic–groundwater–waste management nexus, this paper highlights and advocates for a new strategy of plastic governance in modern states.