This thesis explores urban poverty and the adaptations of the urban poor in the slums of the megacity of Dhaka, Bangladesh. It seeks to make a contribution to understanding and analysis of the phenomenon of rapid mass urbanisation in the Third World and its social consequences, the formation of huge urban slums and new forms of urban poverty. Its focus is the analysis of poverty which has been overwhelmingly dominated by economic approaches to the neglect of the social questions arising from poverty. This thesis approaches these social questions through an ???urban livelihood framework???, arguing that this provides a more comprehensive framework to conceptualise poverty through its inclusion of both material and non-material dimensions. The study is based on primary data collected from slums in Dhaka City. Five hundred poor households were surveyed using a structured questionnaire to investigate the economic activities, expenditure and consumption, access to housing and land, family and social networking and cultural and political integration. The survey data was supplemented by qualitative data collected through fifteen in-depth interviews with poor households. The thesis found that poverty in the slums of Dhaka City was most strongly influenced by recent migration from rural areas, household organisation, participation in the ???informal??? sector of the economy and access to housing and land. Almost half of the poor households in the study locations were identified as ???hardcore poor???, that is having insufficient income for their physical needs. The remainder were found to be ???absolute poor???, those who experienced poverty and vulnerability but varied in their levels of income and consumption. This level of poverty was also characterised by their social, cultural and political marginalisation. In summary, the urban poor remain very much dependent on their household and social networking, the main social capital they use to adapt to life in Dhaka City. Overall, the urban poor in this study experience the highest level of poverty and vulnerability in their everyday life. The thesis argues that the experience of poverty in the megacity of Dhaka for these households follows the pattern of urbanisation without development, the very opposite to their expectations and aspirations.

Rural development is a serious problem in Bangladesh, and so is the situation of women. This thesis assesses the programmes offered by a particular non-governmental organization, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), which simultaneously promote rural development and improve the status of women. This assessment is achieved by examining the functioning and impact of these programmes in a single village. The study is exploratory and uses qualitative methods, employing principally unstructured but in-depth interviews. Results indicate that most village women were aware of the need for improvement in the position of women, but interest, and thus active participation, was greater among those who were widowed or divorced. For these women, the programmes did succeed in raising their income through better technical knowledge, and in some ways improved their position in the family and society. They did not, however, succeed in raising their administrative knowledge, confining them to "women's only" projects, and did little to increase political empowerment.

This thesis explores urban poverty and the adaptations of the urban poor in the slums of the megacity of Dhaka, Bangladesh. It seeks to make a contribution to understanding and analysis of the phenomenon of rapid mass urbanisation in the Third World and its social consequences, the formation of huge urban slums and new forms of urban poverty. Its focus is the analysis of poverty which has been overwhelmingly dominated by economic approaches to the neglect of the social questions arising from poverty. This thesis approaches these social questions through an ???urban livelihood framework???, arguing that this provides a more comprehensive framework to conceptualise poverty through its inclusion of both material and non-material dimensions. The study is based on primary data collected from slums in Dhaka City. Five hundred poor households were surveyed using a structured questionnaire to investigate the economic activities, expenditure and consumption, access to housing and land, family and social networking and cultural and political integration. The survey data was supplemented by qualitative data collected through fifteen in-depth interviews with poor households. The thesis found that poverty in the slums of Dhaka City was most strongly influenced by recent migration from rural areas, household organisation, participation in the ???informal??? sector of the economy and access to housing and land. Almost half of the poor households in the study locations were identified as ???hardcore poor???, that is having insufficient income for their physical needs. The remainder were found to be ???absolute poor???, those who experienced poverty and vulnerability but varied in their levels of income and consumption. This level of poverty was also characterised by their social, cultural and political marginalisation. In summary, the urban poor remain very much dependent on their household and social networking, the main social capital they use to adapt to life in Dhaka City. Overall, the urban poor in this study experience the highest level of poverty and vulnerability in their everyday life. The thesis argues that the experience of poverty in the megacity of Dhaka for these households follows the pattern of urbanisation without development, the very opposite to their expectations and aspirations.

No description available.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 331-404) Attempts to contribute toward greater understanding of the urbanization process in Bangladesh. Focuses particularly on the rural-urban migration process, explaining the causes of mobility and stability and the consequences flowing from that movement for the wellbeing of migrants and their families.

Social forestry is a participatory approach to managing forest resources that attempts to reconcile a range of ecological, commercial and social objectives. Its emergence in the last decade signals a recognition of the failure of development programmes imposed by government directive and of the need for forests to support increasingly impoverished local populations while supplying timber for international markets. Social forestry in Bangladesh has been planned and implemented through the combined efforts of the Bangladeshi government, international aid donors, especially the Asian Development Bank, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The weight of development organizations in this coalition led to an explicit commitment to recognizing the role of women in such projects, both as the target group most dependent on forest resources for domestic needs and, for that same reason, as the group most knowledgeable about the forest's capacity for meeting local needs. / All the components of Social Forestry Programs were examined in two different villages. One village, Shakipur, is close to the local administrative center, while the other, Barsharchala, is more isolated. In both cases, the government had alienated itself from the local population through an aggressive approach to land appropriation. It therefore entrusted popular mobilization and credit distribution to Proshika, a national NGO. Four major conclusions emerge from this research: (1) benefits to women and other target groups have been marginal at best; (2) development planning treats village populations as largely homogenous, ignoring the existence of entrenched power holders who are able to capture the benefits of these programmes; (3) planners also ignore the specificity of local patterns of land ownership, a key factor in the success of participatory projects; and (4) "bottom up" development is in danger of failing because many areas lack a capacity for spontaneous popular mobilization.

With the world's fourth-largest Muslim population, Bangladesh is an important case study in the exploration of what it means to be a 'secular' country with Islam as a state religion. One important mechanism through which to analyse the relationship between religion and the state is through the country's laws, and family laws are especially significant in that they represent the state's determination of which long-standing social and religious practices find their way into legislation as a representation of societal values. As with many other countries with significant Muslim populations, personal status legislation has remained relatively static in the years following independence, despite attempts at change. Inspired by studies of negotiations between state and civil society actors in bringing about changes in law, this study analyses the evolution of family laws for Muslims in Bangladesh, revealing a range of voices using such laws in their negotiations between competing notions of 'Islam' and 'secularism' and their role in governance. Using parliamentary and Supreme Court records, newspaper archives, expert interviews, and secondary literature, I show that there has been little change in personal status legislation beyond procedural simplification, and that the judiciary and policymakers have had a tendency to support freedom of religious practice except in family laws. This study explores why this is the case, and focuses on the discourse around the National Women Development Policy and its clause on property and inheritance as the greatest point of contention in enhancing women's rights in family laws.

No description available.

Doctorat en sciences sociales, politiques et économiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished