Professor Katy Gardner

This course is available on the BA in Anthropology and Law, BA in Social Anthropology, BSc in Social Anthropology, Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Cape Town), Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Fudan), Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Melbourne) and Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Tokyo). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

Undergraduates taking this course should normally have completed an introductory course in anthropology unless granted exemption by the course teacher.

Undergraduates taking this course should normally have completed an introductory course in anthropology unless granted exemption by the course teacher.

This course takes Bangladesh and its diaspora as a starting point for a range of anthropological debates, situating ethnographic material in comparative perspective and thus moving beyond a narrow regionalist approach. Whilst routinely overlooked in India centric South Asian studies, Bangladesh has much to teach us. Since its independence in 1971 it has moved from being an international ‘basket case’ to being a ‘middle income country’; it is the birth place of micro credit, lauded for programmes of ‘female empowerment’, a ‘hybrid regime’ in which secular nationalism and Islam uneasily co-exist, and a new frontier of corporate capitalism and speculation. Questions of mobility are central. As we shall see, from its colonial heritage to the present day Bangladesh and its people have always been on the move; as an ethnographic or cultural region what we might describe as ‘Bangladeshi’ therefore cannot be spatially bounded, confined within national or regional borders or understood in narrow regionalist terms. Moreover, as we progress through the course we will be intellectually mobile, studying comparative ethnographies from South Asia and far beyond and seeking intellectual, geopolitical and cultural connections as well as context specific particularities. Topics covered include:  the legacies of colonialism, partition and war; political protest and mobilisation; speculation and extraction; climate change and the environment; micro finance; piety and freedom; marriage, divorce and dowry; transnational communities and diaspora.

The course explicitly covers a range of perspectives and case studies, drawn not only from Bangladesh but also comparative sites across the world.  A range of voices are represented, including though not limited to many Bangladeshi and South Asian scholars. Overall the course avoids a narrow regionalist focus by widening the lens to the Bengali diaspora and beyond. Questions of gender, race and colonialism, class and ethnicity are core.

4 hours of lectures, 10 hours of classes, 2 hours of workshops and 4 hours of workshops in the MT.

The course will be taught via a mixture of lectures, classes, films / off campus visits / online content and  a workshop. These activities will be arranged in three weekly cycles, which follow the four organising themes of the course: Weeks 1-3: Desh; Weeks 4-6: Stories of Development; Weeks 7-8: Intimate Lives; Weeks 9-10: Bidesh

Each theme / cycle will involve the following, on sequential weeks:

1 x 1 hour lecture: This will provide contextual knowledge and perspectives for the theme

1 x Off Campus Visit / online activity (listed above as 'workshop' X 4) These activities will be designed to fit with each theme and will involve (for example) a visit to Brick Lane, in which students are tasked with answering questions about the history of the area; a visit to a London museum to research the colonial history of Bengal; (if lockdown restrictions continue to be in place in 22/23, these activities will be replaced by online activities.) online activities might include a zoom Q and A with leading Bangladeshi feminist activists, or a quiz which involve online research. All these activities will stretch the students' ability to work independently, to broaden their knowledge of Bangladesh and its diaspora and to make connections between academic debates and 'real life' issues.

10 x Classes will take place every week. In these, students will discuss and analyse the comparative ethnographies and make links with the broader themes outlined in the lecture, films and off campus / online activities.

1 x Workshop: In order for students to develop their research essays there will  be one 2 hour workshop, held towards the end of the course. in this, students will present their ideas and receive feedback from their peers and the course teacher.

The total hours for the course are therefore 4 x 1 hour lecture; 10 x class; 1 workshop (2 hours );  4 x off campus / online activities (which are asynchronous). Total hours = 20

Students on this course will have a reading week in week 6 in line with department policy

Students will be expected to produce 1 piece of coursework in the Week 8.

The formative coursework is an essay outline / plan of 1500 words in which the student outlines prelimary ideas for and sections of their summative research essay. 

• Mookherjee, N., 2015. The spectral wound: Sexual violence, public memories, and the Bangladesh war of 1971. Duke University Press.
• Kuttig, J. and Schulz, M., 2020. Ethnographic Perspectives on the State in Bangladesh. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 54(2)
• Dewan, C., 2020. ‘Climate Change as a Spice’: Brokering Environmental Knowledge in Bangladesh’s Development Industry. Ethnos, pp.1-22.
• Hussain, D., 2013. Boundaries undermined: The ruins of progress on the Bangladesh-India border. Hurst.
• Gardner, K., 2012. Discordant Development. London: Pluto Press.
• Kabeer, N., 2002. The power to choose: Bangladeshi women and labour market decisions in London and Dhaka. Verso.
• Karim, L., 2011. Microfinance and its discontents: Women in debt in Bangladesh. U of Minnesota Press.
• Huang, J.Q., 2020. To Be an Entrepreneur: Social Enterprise and Disruptive Development in Bangladesh. Cornell University Press.
• Gardner, K., 2008. Keeping connected: security, place, and social capital in a ‘Londoni’ village in Sylhet. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 14(3), pp.477-495
• Alexander, C., Chatterji, J. and Jalais, A., 2015. The Bengal diaspora: rethinking Muslim migration. Routledge.

Essay (100%, 3000 words) in the LT Week 1.