Abstract
Community-based studies are a central feature of current development and climate change research and planning in developing countries. In this chapter we reflect upon our engagement with place-based communities over two decades in rural Bangladesh. We draw upon several encounters with local communities to illustrate the relationship between communities of practice and of place; complexities of putting what local people say and do at the centre of project work; the relationship of policy to practice; the difficulties of balancing immediate gains with longer term sustainability; and the need to locate place-based communities within wider ecological, economic and political networks of activity and influence to ensure more effective planning.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Rahman is a Bangladeshi environmentalist and community based natural resource management specialist who began his career in aquaculture while working for DANIDA, Caritas and FAO during 1983–1991, followed by work as a wetland ecologist with the Bangladesh Flood Action Plan in 1991–1994, and in community-based natural resources management (wetlands and forests) with various donor supported projects since 1994. His recent work has been on disaster management and climate change adaptation planning and management with USAID, DFID, UNDP, JICA, SDC, IUCN and Oxfam. He is currently pursuing PhD research into coastal communities’ perceptions and adaptation to climate change impacts in Bangladesh at Curtin University, WA.
Pokrant is an Australian environmental anthropologist whose interest in natural resource management developed in the 1990s when he worked on the impact of British colonial rule on fisher communities in India, the organization and development of fisher communities in Bangladesh and West Bengal and the growth of an export-oriented shrimp industry in Bangladesh and its impact on rural communities.
- 2.
‘Common-pool resources (CPRs) are natural or human-made resources where one person’s use subtracts from another’s use and where it is often necessary, but difficult and costly, to exclude other users outside the group from using the resource’. Digitial Library of the Commons (Accessed April 20 2013. http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/contentguidelines
- 3.
The Flood Action Plan was a long term programme funded by the World Bank designed to protect floodplain and other populations from flooding. It consisted initially of 26 components and focused largely on ‘hard engineering’ solutions. For details of the Plan, see http://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64165259&theSitePK=477916&piPK=64165421&menuPK=64166093&entityID=000178830_98101904135218.
- 4.
Free riding refers to: ‘…the act of freely using resources generated by another person without payment or even authorization…’ (Frischman 2013, p. 13).
- 5.
Seine nets are used on beaches and on boats. They are long nets with or without bags that encircle an area where fish are found. They have been used for centuries among inland fishers in Bangladesh.
- 6.
A Ramsar wetland is an ecosystem protected under the International Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, more commonly known as the Ramsar Convention. See http://www.ramsar.org/cda/en/ramsar-home/main/ramsar/1_4000_0.
References
Agrawal, A., & Gibson, C. C. (Eds.). (2001). Communities and the environment: Ethnicity, gender, and the state in community-based conservation. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Angerbrandt, H., Lindstrom, L., & de la Torre-Castro, M. (2011). What is this thing called ‘community’ good for? In R. Chuenpagdee (Ed.), World small-scale fisheries: Contemporary visions. Delft: Eburon.
Armitage, D., Berkes, F., Dale, A., Kocho-Schellenberg, E., & Patton, E. (2011). Co-management and the co-production of knowledge: Learning to adapt in Canada’s Arctic. Global Environmental Change, 21(3), 995–1004.
Berkes, F. (2007). Community-based conservation in a globalized world. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1040(39), 15188–15193.
Berkes, F., & Folke, C. (Eds.). (1998). Linking social and ecological systems: Management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blackshaw, T. (2009). Key concepts in community studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Blaikie, P. M. (2006). Is small really beautiful? Community-based natural resources management in Malawi and Botswana. World Development, 34, 1942–1957.
Coleman, S., & Von Hellermann, P. (Eds.). (2012). Multi-sited ethnography: Problems and possibilities in the translocation of research methods. New York: Routledge.
Cooke, B., & Kothari, U. (Eds.). (2001). Participation: The new tyranny? New York: Zed Books.
Crow, G. (2012). Community re-studies: Lessons and prospects. The Sociological Review, 60, 405–420. doi:10.1111/j.1467-954X.2012.02091.x.
Ensor, J., & Berger, R. (2009). Understanding climate change adaptation: Lessons from community-based approaches. Rugby: Practical Action Publishing.
Gardner, K. (2012). Discordant development: Global capitalism and the struggle for connection in Bangladesh. London: Pluto Press.
Giddens, A. (2009). The politics of climate change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gruber, J. S. (2010). Key principles of community-based natural resource management: A synthesis and interpretation of identified effective approaches for managing the commons. Environmental Management, 45(1), 52–66.
Gupta, A., & Ferguson, J. (1997). Culture, power, place: Explorations in critical anthropology. Durham: Duke University Press.
Harper, I. (2011). WORLD HEALTH AND NEPAL. In D. Mosse, Adventures in Aidland: The Anthropology of Professionals in International Development.
Hart, K. (1973). Informal income opportunities and urban employment in Ghana. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 11, 61–89. doi:10.1017/S0022278X00008089.
Hickey, S., & Mohan, G. (Eds.). (2004). Participation--from tyranny to transformation?: Exploring new approaches to participation in development. London: Zed books.
International Labour Organization. (1972). Employment, incomes and equality: A strategy for increasing productive employment in Kenya. Geneva: International Labour Office.
Jasanoff, S. (2010). A new climate for society. Theory Culture Society, 27, 233–253. doi:10.1177/0263276409361497.
Kitching, G. (1982). Development and underdevelopment in historical perspective: Populism, nationalism and industrialization. London: Methuen.
McCay, B., & Jentoft, S. (1998). Market or community failure? Critical perspectives on common property research. Human Organization, 57(1), 21–29.
Mansuri, G., & Rao, V. (2012). Localizing development: Does participation work? Washington, D.C: World Bank Publications.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. (2005). Ecosystems and human well-being: General synthesis. Washington: Island Press.
Mosse, D. (2005). Cultivating development: An ethnography of aid policy and practice. London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press.
Mosse, D. (2011). Introduction: The anthropology of expertise and professionals in international development. In D. Mosse (Ed.), Adventures in aidland: The anthropology of professionals in international development. Oxford: Berghahn.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ostrom, E. (2001). Reformulating the commons. In J. Burger, et al. (Eds.), Protecting the commons: A framework for resource management in the Americas (pp. 17–41). Washington, DC: Island Press.
Platteau, J. P. (2004). Monitoring elite capture in community-driven development. Development and Change, 35(2), 223–46.
Rahman, M., Capistrano, D. A., Minkin, S. F., Islam, A., & Halder, S. (1999). Experience of community managed wetland habitat restoration. In H. A. Middendrop, P. M. Thompson, & R. S. Pomroy (Eds.), Sustainable inland fisheries management in Bangladesh (pp. 111–121). Philippinnes: ICLARM Conference Proceedings.
Reid, H. (2009). Community-based adaptation to climate change. London: IIED.
Scott, J. (1998). Weapons of the weak. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Sorge, A., & Roddick, A. P. (2012). Mobile Humanity: The Delocalization of Anthropological Research. Reviews in Anthropology, 41(4), 273–301.
Stoll-Kleemann, S., De la Vega-Leinert, A. C., & Schultz, L. (2010). The role of community participation in the effectiveness of UNESCO biosphere reserve management: Evidence and reflections from two parallel global surveys. Environmental Conservation, 37(03), 227–238.
Thompson, P. M. (2013). Sustainability of community-based organizations in Bangladesh. Society & Natural Resources, 26(7), 778–794.
Wenger, E. (2011). Communities of practice: A brief introduction. scholarsbank.uoregon.edu. Accessed 9 Jan 2013.
Wong, S. (2010). Elite capture or capture elites? Lessons from the ‘counter-elite’ and ‘co-opt-elite’ approaches in Bangladesh and Ghana, Working paper. World Institute for Development Economics Research, No. 2010, 82.
United Nations Development Programme. (2013). 2013 Human development report. New York: United Nations Development Programme.
United Nations Environmental Programme. (2012). Global environmental outlook. New York: United Nations Environment Programme.
Valiela, I. (2006). Global coastal change. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rahman, M., Pokrant, B. (2014). Reflections on Working with Communities and Community-Based Projects in Bangladesh. In: Tiwari, R., Lommerse, M., Smith, D. (eds) M² Models and Methodologies for Community Engagement. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4585-11-8_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4585-11-8_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-4585-10-1
Online ISBN: 978-981-4585-11-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)