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 dissertation examines class and ethnicity in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Southeastern Bangladesh. The indigenous people of this region are now in a minority because of the influx of Bengalees. This study argues that ethnic conflicts, ethnicity or "tribalism" in the CHT emerged as consequences of British, Pakistani and Bengalee colonialism, modernization and development projects undertaken by the international development agencies; these factors changed the relations of production and were accompanied by militarization of the area and a destruction of the traditional mode of life. Ethnicity as an ideology has played a determinant role in the CHT rather than class, despite the fact that the CHT groups and the Bengalees are divided into several socio-economic levels. Here, class interests and class issues are undermined and overshadowed by the presence of ethnic antagonisms and an ideology of "tribalism" among Bengalees and the indigenous CHT peoples.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Architecture / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Tourism is acquiring the attention worldwide especially in the developing countries (Akpabio et al. 2006). In the case of coastal areas, tourism is more sensitive to environmental degradation compared to other economic activities because the environment is its primary resource. With the help of efficient planning and proper management of natural resources, tourism can significantly contribute to environmental conservation and to achieve environmental sustainability in coastal areas (Orhon et al. 2011). The main purposes of this study are to explore the tourism development trend in coastal areas of Cox’s Bazar, to analyse existing environmental conditions of Cox’s Bazar coastal area, to examine the importance of environmental sustainability at coastal region. More positively, the study shows environmental sustainability can be achieved through more eco-friendly planning of installations in tourism hubs like Cox’s Bazar. The main methods of conducting this study were desktop research; data collection through questionnaire survey and expert interview; data input in SPSS, processing and analysis; evaluation of policies, strategies and institutional framework. To formulate study goal and objectives, a comprehensive literature review has been conducted to understand about tourism, tourism development, sustainability, sustainable development by reviewing relevant reports, journals, and international cases which has helped to develop the conceptual framework of the study. After extensive literature review and formulation of goal and objectives, the conceptual framework of the study data collection instruments such as questionnaire has been prepared to collect data from the field. The study is largely based on the primary data collected through field visit, interviews to the experts on tourism and environment, and questionnaire survey at the study area, Cox’s Bazar. In this study, the statistical data on the study area has been collected from Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). Apart from this, information has also been collected from various sources e.g. journals, projects, periodicals, and the daily newspapers, archives of both home and abroad. From the analysis, it found that Cox’s Bazar sea beach is a good place for tourism development, and it is also found that the level of tourism is improving gradually. Tourism in Cox’s Bazar mainly depends on natural beauty and environment of the coastal area. Tourism is producing long term negative effects on the coastal environment. If the environmental systems degrade tourism will not sustain any more. However, tourism can provide incentive for the conservation and restoration of the natural environment. Nearly half of the respondents stated that because of tourism, natural environment is in better condition in Cox’s Bazar and tourism provides incentive for the conservation and restoration of the natural environment. The analysis also identifies that policies and strategies play a big role to the conservation of natural environment and resources, and the implementation of principles of sustainable development. Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has been formulated some policies and strategies related to tourism development, sustainable development and coastal zone management, but most of the policies and strategies are not implemented properly because of institutional conflicts. In the light of the data analysis, discussion and findings, some recommendations are suggested here to help and guide future decisions regarding tourism development, conservation of the environment, sustainable development and sustainability at coastal areas in Bangladesh. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

The basic research question this thesis addresses is how the secondary status of Bangladeshi women is reinforced through household labour. It is argued that gender relations and housework shape each other. To develop this, it examines the degree of participation of women in different areas of housework and family decisions. The thesis further explores whether the autonomy of women coming from the traditional Bangladeshi family set-up has increased as a result of their immigration to Canada and their exposure to Canadian family values. This is done by a comparison of the family experiences of Canadian and Bangladeshi women. Finally, it is suggested that age, position in the family and length of immigration are the indices of the autonomy of Bangladeshi women in Canada.

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Master of Science / Department of Geology / Saugata Datta / The incidence of high arsenic (As) and other oxyanions (e.g. Mn) has been examined in a ~410km[superscript]2 areas within the Bengal Delta between North and South Matlab, Bangladesh. The aim of this study was to examine the role of sediment geochemistry, coupled with microbial community studies and their relations with different colors and grain sizes of sediments, in determining evolved groundwater hydrochemistry within the aquifers in Matlab. Groundwaters are Ca–Mg–HCO[subscript]3- types in shallow aquifers, Mg-HCO[subscript]3- in the intermediate depths and Na-K-Cl rich in the deeper aquifers. Dissolved As concentration is high (~781μg/l) associated with shallow grey and dark grey sediments, whereas light grey sediments at intermediate depths contain lower As (<10 μg/l). Dissolved Fe[superscript]T on other hand in both sediment types (light grey and grey) shows good correlation with dissolved SO[subscript]4[superscript]2-. In plots of [delta]δ[superscript]18O vs [delta]δD, intermediate and deeper depth aquifer waters plot on the arrays for LMWL and GMWL, which indicates the principal recharge mechanism is likely to be from local precipitation within the shallow aquifers. Only the high As groundwaters deflect from the LMWL, indicating that recharge might be a mixture of precipitation and surficial discharges / infiltrations for these waters. Bulk extraction of sediments showed that grey and dark grey sediments from shallow depths have higher As concentrations (~31 mg/kg) and light grey sediments have comparatively less (~11mg/kg). Sequential extractions for sediment fractionations showed that most of the As was bound to amorphous and poorly crystalline hydrous oxides of Fe and Al phases. Synchrotron-aided bulk-XANES studies conducted on sediments revealed As and S speciation in the core samples at different depths indicating the occurrences of hotspots of As distributed randomly in light grey and grey sediments. As[superscript]3+ is the dominant species in Matlab sediments. More than 101 bacterial families were identified among the eight sediment samples from the South Matlab core and out of them fewer than six families comprised more than ~80% of total bacterial families. Our results indicate significant relationships between bacterial community structure, grain size fractionation, dissolved As concentration and sediment C, Mn, and Fe concentrations for these samples. Groundwater abstracted from these light grey sediments, in contrast to reduced greyish to dark greyish sediments, contain significantly lower amounts of dissolved As and can be a source of safe water for the future. Our work demonstrates that intermediate depth light grey sediments have geochemical and microbial features conducive with safe drinking water for the future.

No description available.

No description available.