This article discusses how the Rohingyasa forcibly displaced community transformed the everyday l... more This article discusses how the Rohingyasa forcibly displaced community transformed the everyday lives and the territory of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Since August 2017, Cox's Bazar, a borderland of Bangladesh is hosting more than a million of non-citizens within 32 camps in its two subdistricts. Based on mobile ethnographic research, I arguea. borderlands are sites where politics of territory intersects politics of identity. The Rohingyas' statelessness and perpetuated marginalization are the outcome of this politics between identity and territory of the nation-states. b. The state prioritizes the security of its citizens from the refugees. Consequentially, the state enacts combined mechanisms of biopolitical and territorial practices that physically demarcate the refugee camps and socially segregate the refugees. I introduce this combination of mechanisms as hybrid governmentality. In Cox's Bazar, the key mechanisms of hybrid governmentality include-labelling refugees based on political rationale and providing them with identification cards, enacting street level surveillance to ensure confinement of the refugees, and maintaining everyday separation between refugees and the citizens.
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2022
This article analyzes displacement in the context of three communities in South Asia: Afghan refu... more This article analyzes displacement in the context of three communities in South Asia: Afghan refugees in Pakistan, Sri Lankan Tamils in India, and Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. In each of these cases, refugee management emerges out of the complexities of geopolitics and humanitarianism and becomes central to urban questions of the right to move and remain in the city. Drawing on scholarship in the geopolitics of migrant (im)mobilities, refugee studies, and South Asia studies, we argue that displacement threatens the contours of belonging and citizenship across South Asian nation-states. For these reasons, the cities where the displaced live have become the locus of national unbelonging and state violence through entangled forms of securitization and urbanization. In particular, we detail the spatial and socioeconomic segregation of displaced populations in which they are subject to mundane bureaucratic violence and the role that social class plays in navigating the exclusions triggered by displacement. In the cities where the displaced settle, the displaced shape the urban economy, whereas the state applies strategies of spatial control that aim to nationalize urban space while maintaining the refugees as forever displaceable.
This report presents findings on the ways in which food price volatility (FPV) affects poor peopl... more This report presents findings on the ways in which food price volatility (FPV) affects poor people's lives and how they cope with its effects in Bangladesh. It explains how different occupational groups are differently affected due to changes in contexts and opportunities at micro (household), meso (community) and macro (national) levels. The four key issues studied in the research are: a) well-being trends, i.e. people's perception about what living well means in their context, and how far or close they are to their desired state of well-being, and why; b) coping strategies, i.e. how people are managing in difficult times, with a particular focus on how they are coping with volatile and rising food prices; c) support systems, i.e. an exploration of different types of support systems available to people living in poverty that help them to survive; and d) perspectives on farming as a future prospect for young people, i.e. how price volatility is affecting the occupational choice of people who traditionally rely on agriculture.
Revealing Gender Inequalities and Perceptions in South Asian Countries through Discourse Analysis
Socioeconomic inequality among men and women is a major hindrance in ensuring equal advancement f... more Socioeconomic inequality among men and women is a major hindrance in ensuring equal advancement for all human being to live a dignified life. Minority status of women further exacerbates inequalities faced by women belonging to small ethnic groups. The chapter explores gender inequality across three small ethnic minorities' groups in Bangladesh. Applying Nussbaum's capability approach to analyze the situation of women with different social and ethnic identities, this chapter unpacks the three-fold barriers experienced by women belonging to minorities groups – first, as minority group, second as women and third as minority women. Lack of awareness, perceiving their “present state” as destiny, social and local norms and patriarchal way of thinking force these women to live with identity of secondary citizens.
Revealing Gender Inequalities and Perceptions in South Asian Countries through Discourse Analysis, 2016
Socioeconomic inequality among men and women is a major hindrance in ensuring equal advancement f... more Socioeconomic inequality among men and women is a major hindrance in ensuring equal advancement for all human being to live a dignified life. Minority status of women further exacerbates inequalities faced by women belonging to small ethnic groups. The chapter explores gender inequality across three small ethnic minorities' groups in Bangladesh. Applying Nussbaum's capability approach to analyze the situation of women with different social and ethnic identities, this chapter unpacks the threefold barriers experienced by women belonging to minorities groups-first, as minority group, second as women and third as minority women. Lack of awareness, perceiving their "present state" as destiny, social and local norms and patriarchal way of thinking force these women to live with identity of secondary citizens.
This article discusses how the Rohingyasa forcibly displaced community transformed the everyday l... more This article discusses how the Rohingyasa forcibly displaced community transformed the everyday lives and the territory of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Since August 2017, Cox's Bazar, a borderland of Bangladesh is hosting more than a million of non-citizens within 32 camps in its two subdistricts. Based on mobile ethnographic research, I arguea. borderlands are sites where politics of territory intersects politics of identity. The Rohingyas' statelessness and perpetuated marginalization are the outcome of this politics between identity and territory of the nation-states. b. The state prioritizes the security of its citizens from the refugees. Consequentially, the state enacts combined mechanisms of biopolitical and territorial practices that physically demarcate the refugee camps and socially segregate the refugees. I introduce this combination of mechanisms as hybrid governmentality. In Cox's Bazar, the key mechanisms of hybrid governmentality include-labelling refugees based on political rationale and providing them with identification cards, enacting street level surveillance to ensure confinement of the refugees, and maintaining everyday separation between refugees and the citizens.
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2022
This article analyzes displacement in the context of three communities in South Asia: Afghan refu... more This article analyzes displacement in the context of three communities in South Asia: Afghan refugees in Pakistan, Sri Lankan Tamils in India, and Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. In each of these cases, refugee management emerges out of the complexities of geopolitics and humanitarianism and becomes central to urban questions of the right to move and remain in the city. Drawing on scholarship in the geopolitics of migrant (im)mobilities, refugee studies, and South Asia studies, we argue that displacement threatens the contours of belonging and citizenship across South Asian nation-states. For these reasons, the cities where the displaced live have become the locus of national unbelonging and state violence through entangled forms of securitization and urbanization. In particular, we detail the spatial and socioeconomic segregation of displaced populations in which they are subject to mundane bureaucratic violence and the role that social class plays in navigating the exclusions triggered by displacement. In the cities where the displaced settle, the displaced shape the urban economy, whereas the state applies strategies of spatial control that aim to nationalize urban space while maintaining the refugees as forever displaceable.
Millions of people in Bangladesh suffer from hunger, unpredictable and unstable livelihoods, prec... more Millions of people in Bangladesh suffer from hunger, unpredictable and unstable livelihoods, precarious living conditions, and social injustice. Yet they survive and become resilient. However, the resilience achieved by the poor is minimal and incremental and does not result in their well-being. Based on three years of qualitative research, this article attempts to understand the nature of and pathways to ‘resilience of the poor people'. The article argues that poor people's approach to ‘resilience’ is twofold. First, they perceive their poverty and associated problems as ‘Allah's will', with not much to be done about it. At the same time, they engage in continuous innovative practices to survive. These two worldviews together ('fatalism’ and ‘self-help') make the poor ‘resilient'. This also ‘partially’ explains the absence of strong activism, collective action and protests within a context of state failure (in terms of ensuring rights and entitlements to its citizens).
This article discusses how the Rohingyasa forcibly displaced community transformed the everyday l... more This article discusses how the Rohingyasa forcibly displaced community transformed the everyday lives and the territory of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Since August 2017, Cox's Bazar, a borderland of Bangladesh is hosting more than a million of non-citizens within 32 camps in its two subdistricts. Based on mobile ethnographic research, I arguea. borderlands are sites where politics of territory intersects politics of identity. The Rohingyas' statelessness and perpetuated marginalization are the outcome of this politics between identity and territory of the nation-states. b. The state prioritizes the security of its citizens from the refugees. Consequentially, the state enacts combined mechanisms of biopolitical and territorial practices that physically demarcate the refugee camps and socially segregate the refugees. I introduce this combination of mechanisms as hybrid governmentality. In Cox's Bazar, the key mechanisms of hybrid governmentality include-labelling refugees based on political rationale and providing them with identification cards, enacting street level surveillance to ensure confinement of the refugees, and maintaining everyday separation between refugees and the citizens.
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2022
This article analyzes displacement in the context of three communities in South Asia: Afghan refu... more This article analyzes displacement in the context of three communities in South Asia: Afghan refugees in Pakistan, Sri Lankan Tamils in India, and Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. In each of these cases, refugee management emerges out of the complexities of geopolitics and humanitarianism and becomes central to urban questions of the right to move and remain in the city. Drawing on scholarship in the geopolitics of migrant (im)mobilities, refugee studies, and South Asia studies, we argue that displacement threatens the contours of belonging and citizenship across South Asian nation-states. For these reasons, the cities where the displaced live have become the locus of national unbelonging and state violence through entangled forms of securitization and urbanization. In particular, we detail the spatial and socioeconomic segregation of displaced populations in which they are subject to mundane bureaucratic violence and the role that social class plays in navigating the exclusions triggered by displacement. In the cities where the displaced settle, the displaced shape the urban economy, whereas the state applies strategies of spatial control that aim to nationalize urban space while maintaining the refugees as forever displaceable.
This report presents findings on the ways in which food price volatility (FPV) affects poor peopl... more This report presents findings on the ways in which food price volatility (FPV) affects poor people's lives and how they cope with its effects in Bangladesh. It explains how different occupational groups are differently affected due to changes in contexts and opportunities at micro (household), meso (community) and macro (national) levels. The four key issues studied in the research are: a) well-being trends, i.e. people's perception about what living well means in their context, and how far or close they are to their desired state of well-being, and why; b) coping strategies, i.e. how people are managing in difficult times, with a particular focus on how they are coping with volatile and rising food prices; c) support systems, i.e. an exploration of different types of support systems available to people living in poverty that help them to survive; and d) perspectives on farming as a future prospect for young people, i.e. how price volatility is affecting the occupational choice of people who traditionally rely on agriculture.
Revealing Gender Inequalities and Perceptions in South Asian Countries through Discourse Analysis
Socioeconomic inequality among men and women is a major hindrance in ensuring equal advancement f... more Socioeconomic inequality among men and women is a major hindrance in ensuring equal advancement for all human being to live a dignified life. Minority status of women further exacerbates inequalities faced by women belonging to small ethnic groups. The chapter explores gender inequality across three small ethnic minorities' groups in Bangladesh. Applying Nussbaum's capability approach to analyze the situation of women with different social and ethnic identities, this chapter unpacks the three-fold barriers experienced by women belonging to minorities groups – first, as minority group, second as women and third as minority women. Lack of awareness, perceiving their “present state” as destiny, social and local norms and patriarchal way of thinking force these women to live with identity of secondary citizens.
Revealing Gender Inequalities and Perceptions in South Asian Countries through Discourse Analysis, 2016
Socioeconomic inequality among men and women is a major hindrance in ensuring equal advancement f... more Socioeconomic inequality among men and women is a major hindrance in ensuring equal advancement for all human being to live a dignified life. Minority status of women further exacerbates inequalities faced by women belonging to small ethnic groups. The chapter explores gender inequality across three small ethnic minorities' groups in Bangladesh. Applying Nussbaum's capability approach to analyze the situation of women with different social and ethnic identities, this chapter unpacks the threefold barriers experienced by women belonging to minorities groups-first, as minority group, second as women and third as minority women. Lack of awareness, perceiving their "present state" as destiny, social and local norms and patriarchal way of thinking force these women to live with identity of secondary citizens.
This article discusses how the Rohingyasa forcibly displaced community transformed the everyday l... more This article discusses how the Rohingyasa forcibly displaced community transformed the everyday lives and the territory of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Since August 2017, Cox's Bazar, a borderland of Bangladesh is hosting more than a million of non-citizens within 32 camps in its two subdistricts. Based on mobile ethnographic research, I arguea. borderlands are sites where politics of territory intersects politics of identity. The Rohingyas' statelessness and perpetuated marginalization are the outcome of this politics between identity and territory of the nation-states. b. The state prioritizes the security of its citizens from the refugees. Consequentially, the state enacts combined mechanisms of biopolitical and territorial practices that physically demarcate the refugee camps and socially segregate the refugees. I introduce this combination of mechanisms as hybrid governmentality. In Cox's Bazar, the key mechanisms of hybrid governmentality include-labelling refugees based on political rationale and providing them with identification cards, enacting street level surveillance to ensure confinement of the refugees, and maintaining everyday separation between refugees and the citizens.
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2022
This article analyzes displacement in the context of three communities in South Asia: Afghan refu... more This article analyzes displacement in the context of three communities in South Asia: Afghan refugees in Pakistan, Sri Lankan Tamils in India, and Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. In each of these cases, refugee management emerges out of the complexities of geopolitics and humanitarianism and becomes central to urban questions of the right to move and remain in the city. Drawing on scholarship in the geopolitics of migrant (im)mobilities, refugee studies, and South Asia studies, we argue that displacement threatens the contours of belonging and citizenship across South Asian nation-states. For these reasons, the cities where the displaced live have become the locus of national unbelonging and state violence through entangled forms of securitization and urbanization. In particular, we detail the spatial and socioeconomic segregation of displaced populations in which they are subject to mundane bureaucratic violence and the role that social class plays in navigating the exclusions triggered by displacement. In the cities where the displaced settle, the displaced shape the urban economy, whereas the state applies strategies of spatial control that aim to nationalize urban space while maintaining the refugees as forever displaceable.
Millions of people in Bangladesh suffer from hunger, unpredictable and unstable livelihoods, prec... more Millions of people in Bangladesh suffer from hunger, unpredictable and unstable livelihoods, precarious living conditions, and social injustice. Yet they survive and become resilient. However, the resilience achieved by the poor is minimal and incremental and does not result in their well-being. Based on three years of qualitative research, this article attempts to understand the nature of and pathways to ‘resilience of the poor people'. The article argues that poor people's approach to ‘resilience’ is twofold. First, they perceive their poverty and associated problems as ‘Allah's will', with not much to be done about it. At the same time, they engage in continuous innovative practices to survive. These two worldviews together ('fatalism’ and ‘self-help') make the poor ‘resilient'. This also ‘partially’ explains the absence of strong activism, collective action and protests within a context of state failure (in terms of ensuring rights and entitlements to its citizens).
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Papers by Sharif Wahab
migrant (im)mobilities, refugee studies, and South Asia studies, we argue that displacement threatens the contours of belonging and citizenship across South Asian nation-states. For these reasons, the cities where
the displaced live have become the locus of national unbelonging and state violence through entangled forms of securitization and urbanization. In particular, we detail the spatial and socioeconomic segregation of
displaced populations in which they are subject to mundane bureaucratic violence and the role that social class plays in navigating the exclusions triggered by displacement. In the cities where the displaced settle,
the displaced shape the urban economy, whereas the state applies strategies of spatial control that aim to nationalize urban space while maintaining the refugees as forever displaceable.
migrant (im)mobilities, refugee studies, and South Asia studies, we argue that displacement threatens the contours of belonging and citizenship across South Asian nation-states. For these reasons, the cities where
the displaced live have become the locus of national unbelonging and state violence through entangled forms of securitization and urbanization. In particular, we detail the spatial and socioeconomic segregation of
displaced populations in which they are subject to mundane bureaucratic violence and the role that social class plays in navigating the exclusions triggered by displacement. In the cities where the displaced settle,
the displaced shape the urban economy, whereas the state applies strategies of spatial control that aim to nationalize urban space while maintaining the refugees as forever displaceable.