Gilbert, Paul Robert (2018) Class, complicity & capitalist ambition in Dhaka’s elite enclaves. Focaal, 2018 (81). pp. 43-57. ISSN 0920-1297
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Abstract
This article draws on ethnographic work carried out in London and Dhaka as part of a multi-sited project exploring the production of investment opportunities for (predominantly British) companies in Bangladesh. Focusing on the Ready-Made Garment sector in the run up to, and wake of, the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse, I trace aid-funded attempts to improve Bangladesh’s investment climate, engagements with these initiatives by brokers seeking to “rebrand” Bangladesh as an investment destination, and by RMG factory-owning businesspeople based in Dhaka. Writing against the ‘postcritical turn’, I suggest that responding to the explicit recognition by business elites of their own complicity in the exploitation of garment workers provides an entry point for a critical account of private-sector development that enhances, not curtails, ethnographic understanding.
Item Type: | Article |
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Keywords: | Bangladesh, complicity, critique, development, investment climate, Rana Plaza |
Schools and Departments: | School of Global Studies > International Development |
Subjects: | G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology > GN301 Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology > GN406 Cultural traits, customs, and institutions > GN448 Economic organisation. Economic anthropology H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labour > HD0072 Economic development. Development economics. Economic growth |
Depositing User: | Paul Robert Gilbert |
Date Deposited: | 31 May 2018 12:04 |
Last Modified: | 05 Jul 2018 12:04 |
URI: | http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/76237 |
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