UPL launches book, ‘Millennial Generation in Bangladesh’

In an online ceremony on Friday, May 13, the University Press Limited (UPL) launched its title, Millennial Generation in Bangladesh: Their Life Strategies, Movement, and Identity Politics (2022), a volume edited by academic, researcher, and associate professor at Kobe College, Kazuyo Minamide.

The book in question, according to the blurb on UPL's website, asks noteworthy questions like, "How do [Millennials] identify themselves in the social and national contexts and how can the nation's framework work for their life strategy?" 

UPL's Managing Director, Mahrukh Mohiuddin, was joined by panellists Dina M Siddiqi, 

Clinical Associate Professor of Liberal Studies at New York University; David Lewis, Professor of Anthropology and Development at London School of Economics and Political Science; Tariq Omar Ali, 

Associate Professor at Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; and the editor of the book, Kazuyo Minamide.

In her introduction to the book, Kazuyo Minamide writes that it took her six years to publish the book since she started her research project into youth migration and cultural formation in the era of economic growth in Bangladesh. "We understand that it was a turning point for Bangladesh in social transformations—locally, nationally, and globally", she said. "Members of this generation that was born during this transition to democracy after the end of military rule—whose stories constituted this book—", the limited opportunities in society have forced them to struggle with uncertainty "that has resulted in dissatisfaction".

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"[Bangladeshi Millennials] cannot be described homogeneously", the editor added. "The influence of globalisation reveals their different faces…and each has been struggling in its distinct settings. Notably, she points out that "the dynamics of the [Millennials] have indeed indicated the dynamics of the society". Each chapter in the book describes the generation from a unique perspective.

"Not belonging to the generation, it is a bit odd to speak for people who are", Tariq Omar Ali said. "However, Minamide's book is very careful in doing what most people in the preceding generations have done so far when talking about this generation, that is, ascribing a bunch of personality traits to Millennials".

David Lewis ruminates why there is so little of such discourse around Millennials in contemporary literature. This is one of the few edited books in his observation in which there is consistent quality of content across all the chapters. "This book is offering a very coherent set of reflections on the generation of Millennials, on the generation who grew up at a political turning point".

Dina M Siddiqi said, "The contradictions and inconsistencies that the stories point out reveal so much about the dynamics of power and resistance, and allow us to undo and demystify a set of enduring tropes and binaries [in the] dominant development discourses of progress and modernity." "All of the chapters, in instrumental ways, push against that".

Millennial Generation in Bangladesh can be found on the University Press Limited website at BDT 700.00 (US$ 21.00).