The environmental humanities—founded on the indivisible human-environment nexus—focus on socioeconomic inequalities, injustices, and various cultural differences to explain environmental degradation and crises and to propose solutions. The Bangladesh Environmental Humanities Reader: Environmental Justice, Developmental Victimhood, and Resistance presents unique analyses of Bangladesh’s environment-development relationships.
The book looks at developmental victimhood, environmental injustices, and resistance of the marginalized in Bangladesh. It reflects how the popular GDP-based economic development model motivates governments of Bangladesh to undertake infrastructural and “development” projects, the growth of which threatens environment and livelihood of the poorer sections while benefiting the affluent profiteers. The book also critically engages with environmentalism represented through the literary works in Bangla through tales of pollution, depletion, and human-nature symbiosis, showing ways to achieve social justice to resist victimhood through art. Moreover, agricultural technologies shaped by cultivators-scientists’ collaborations are often helpful for biodiversity conservation, notwithstanding those that ruin ecology and livelihood. Against the backdrop of climate change challenges, this book shows how politics and technology meet in many cross-cutting pathways.
Contributions by: Rubiat Afrose, Taslima Akhter, Fakrul Alam, Faria Alam, Zahid ul Arefin Choudhury, Philip Gain, Fahmidul Haq, Monzima Haque, Fatema Tuj-Juhra, Mesbah Kamal, Mrittika Kamal, Munasir Kamal, Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan, Shehreen Ataur Khan, Lutfun Nahar Lata, Samina Luthfa, Md. Rezwanul Haque Masud, Sabrina Masud, Anu Muhammad, Golam Rabbani, Lutfur Rahman, Qazi Arka Rahman, Soumya Sarker