Law Event
'Controversial democratic spaces: Land, environment and human rights in Bangladesh'
Mahdy Hassan
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Atwo-day long International Workshop on 'Controversial Democratic Spaces: Land, Environment and Human Rights in Bangladesh' has been just over. It was jointly organized by Bielefeld University and University of Dhaka at Nawab Ali Senate Hall on 16-17 October 2012. The workshop was inaugurated by Prof. Dr. Shahnaz Huda, Chairman, Department of Law, University of Dhaka and Prof. Dr. Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, the Director of R.G. Social Anthropology, Bielefeld University. This international workshop focused on the interfaces between land, environment, and human rights in Bangladesh. The workshop sought to explore both the modes and dynamics of land dispossession in Bangladesh. It asked how environmentalism and human rights, through their vernacularized meanings, in relation to land dispossession, intersect at the local level, and how thereby local political spaces evolve. In this vein, the workshop emphasized some particular issues like the role of the conflicting concepts of democracy, democratization in relation with violence, security, fear, environmental and resource justice, as well as the modalities of inclusion and exclusion in these political arenas.
The workshop was tailored by the Research Group Social Anthropology at the Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University, Germany, in close collaboration with the Department of Law, University of Dhaka. The R.G. at Bielefeld studies the global spread of the terms 'democracy' and 'democratisation' based on their local appropriation in Bangladesh.
In the inaugural session chaired by Prof. Borhan Uddin Khan, Prof Katy Gardner of Sussex University and Dr. Ridwanul Hoque of the Department of Law, Dhaka University, presented keynote papers. Katy Gardner talked on “Accumulation by dispossession in an era of corporate social responsibility?" with particular reference to the case study of Chevron's Bibiyana gas extraction plant in Sylhet. Dr. Hoque presented his keynote paper on 'The World of Rights: Issues Concerning Land, Environment, and Human Rights', in which he argued that instead of a single problem, there are a number of problems in this area that are deeply rooted in socio-economic, political, and cultural make-ups of the Bangladeshi society.
Following the inaugural session, there were four discussion panels. In the first panel, chaired by Prof. Eva Gerharz of Ruhr University, Prof. Rehman Sobhan, Chairman of CPD, and Prof. Shelley Feldman of Cornell University spoke. Prof Sobhan spoke on 'The Political Economy of Land Dispossession in Bangladesh', making a number of recommendations for agrarian reform i Bangladesh while Prof. Feldman spoke on 'Dispossession, Alienation, and Insecure Property Rights' linking these issues to what she called 'Neoliberal Democracy'. The second session of the first day, presided over by Prof. Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka of Bielefeld University, comprised two papers by Dr. Atiq Rahman and Sanjeeb Droong, respectively focusing on environmental fears in Bangladesh and human rights and environmental dynamics of Indigenous Peoples.
Prof Asif Nazrul presided over the third panel in which Prof Amena Mohsin and Prof. Mesbah Kamal, both from Dhaka University, gave papers on 'Limits of Majoritarian Democracy in Bangladesh' and on 'Denial of Diversity: Politics of Non-Accommodation and Its Implications' respectively. Dr. Iftekharuzzaman, Executive Director of Transparency International Bangladesh, presided over the last session with Dr. Meghna Guhathakurta, Executive Director, Research Initiatives Bangladesh (RIB) Bangladesh, as a speaker. Dr. Guhathakurta spoke on several aspects of human security and human rights, with special reference to 'South Asian realities'.
The writer is a Student of Law, University of Dhaka.
