Hosna J Shewly
Biographic Data
| ID | 3080280 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hosna J Shewly |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hosna J |
| FAMILY NAME | Shewly |
| SIGNATURE | SHEWLY H J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2686-8268 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 68 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Between Forests and Courts
This article examines how Khasi Indigenous activists in Bangladesh navigate land dispossession under contested environmental governance. Their struggles against commercial tourism, tea estates, rubber plantations and state-sanctioned deforestation often remain marginal to public debate, as media and state agencies tend to align with elite development agendas. In such settings, Indigenous communities without formal land entitlement are required to…
Lefebvre in the digital city
This paper examines the evolving dynamics of protest in urban Bangladesh by analysing the temporal interplay between public space, activism, and state control. Social movements have played a crucial role in shaping Bangladesh’s political landscape, from the 1971 liberation struggle to the transition to parliamentary democracy in the early 1990s. Over time, the spatial tactics and forms of these movements have shifted. Drawing on ethnography in Dh…
Reconceptualising activism space in the contemporary Global South
This edited volume reconceptualises ‘activism space’ in the contemporary Global South as a dynamic, adaptive and multi-sited formation shaped by colonial legacies, authoritarian repression and epistemic inequality. It critiques Eurocentric frameworks that overlook the situated logics and spatial innovations of resistance emerging under volatile political conditions. Highlighting movements across seven countries (India, South Africa, Palestine, Ir…
Dancing in-between
This paper conceptualises interstitial feminist defiance as a mode of activism that emerges between formal feminist mobilisations and everyday dissent. Drawing on a qualitative case study of the Ekbatan girls’ viral dance in Tehran – a public, unsanctioned act of joy and resistance – we trace how embodied gestures circulate across urban and digital terrains, amplifying feminist struggle under authoritarian rule. These fleeting, often decentralis…
Hyper‐Precarious Lives
This article examines the lived experiences of precarity in Bangladesh’s ready‐made garments (RMG) industry, focusing on female migrant workers employed in Dhaka and surrounding industrial areas. Over the past three decades, the growth of the RMG sector has attracted economically disadvantaged rural women, distancing them from their traditional domestic and agricultural roles. This sector predominantly employs young women due to their perceived f…
Causal connections between climate change and disaster
Popular climate change narratives often identify climate change as the prime trigger of all environmental hazards. Consistent and harmonised framing of this relationship by public media, epistemic communities and established institutions continually shapes and reinforces such narratives. These dominant narratives may present an image of an apocalyptic future beyond the coping capacity of ‘climate victims’ (often identified – implicitly or explici…
Aspiration and Desperation Traps in Trajectories of Physical and Social Mobility-Immobility
Over the last two decades, Bangladesh has experienced a dramatic shift in terms of female rural–urban migration, often referred to as the feminization of migration. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research on young female migrants’ livelihood experiences in Dhaka and Gazipur, this article makes three contributions to the migration and mobilities literature. First, while migration often constitutes an adequate tool for resolving desperation, it …
Invisible mobilities
Drawing on ethnography, this paper conceptualizes invisible mobilities by exploring the linkages between mobility, invisibility and hotel and residence based sex work in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Since both are illegal in Bangladesh, hotel and residence based sex workers (HRSWs) become targets of the different laws and sex work related social stigma. We show, in this paper, how invisible mobilities is used to strategize and counter-enact against the exi…
Life in de facto statelessness in enclaves in India and Bangladesh
Drawing on conceptualization of statelessness and ethnographic research on crucial insights of rightessness, this paper investigates how the politico‐geographic‐legality constructs statelessness in the enclaves in India and Bangladesh. Following the decolonization process in 1947, both India and Pakistan/Bangladesh inherited more than 200 enclaves, which comprise 80 per cent of the world's enclaves. With improved bilateral relations, India and Ba…
Survival Mobilities
Drawing on ethnography, this paper unravels the intricate relationship between survival tactics and legal status in the complex process of survival mobility in the ungoverned enclaves of India and Bangladesh. In doing so, I explicate the spaces of survival of the undocumented enclave dwellers. The survival mobility in the enclave shows how states’ construction of legal immobility in effect compels illegal mobility. Besides, enclave dwellers’ surv…
Citizenship, abandonment and resistance in the India–Bangladesh borderland
Abandoned spaces and bare life in the enclaves of the India-Bangladesh border
Abandoned spaces and bare life in the enclaves of the India-Bangladesh border
Survival Mobilities
Drawing on ethnography, this paper unravels the intricate relationship between survival tactics and legal status in the complex process of survival mobility in the ungoverned enclaves of India and Bangladesh. In doing so, I explicate the spaces of survival of the undocumented enclave dwellers. The survival mobility in the enclave shows how states’ construction of legal immobility in effect compels illegal mobility. Besides, enclave dwellers’ surv…
Citizenship, abandonment and resistance in the India–Bangladesh borderland
Invisible mobilities
Drawing on ethnography, this paper conceptualizes invisible mobilities by exploring the linkages between mobility, invisibility and hotel and residence based sex work in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Since both are illegal in Bangladesh, hotel and residence based sex workers (HRSWs) become targets of the different laws and sex work related social stigma. We show, in this paper, how invisible mobilities is used to strategize and counter-enact against the exi…
Life in de facto statelessness in enclaves in India and Bangladesh
Drawing on conceptualization of statelessness and ethnographic research on crucial insights of rightessness, this paper investigates how the politico‐geographic‐legality constructs statelessness in the enclaves in India and Bangladesh. Following the decolonization process in 1947, both India and Pakistan/Bangladesh inherited more than 200 enclaves, which comprise 80 per cent of the world's enclaves. With improved bilateral relations, India and Ba…
Lefebvre in the digital city
This paper examines the evolving dynamics of protest in urban Bangladesh by analysing the temporal interplay between public space, activism, and state control. Social movements have played a crucial role in shaping Bangladesh’s political landscape, from the 1971 liberation struggle to the transition to parliamentary democracy in the early 1990s. Over time, the spatial tactics and forms of these movements have shifted. Drawing on ethnography in Dh…
Dancing in-between
This paper conceptualises interstitial feminist defiance as a mode of activism that emerges between formal feminist mobilisations and everyday dissent. Drawing on a qualitative case study of the Ekbatan girls’ viral dance in Tehran – a public, unsanctioned act of joy and resistance – we trace how embodied gestures circulate across urban and digital terrains, amplifying feminist struggle under authoritarian rule. These fleeting, often decentralis…
Causal connections between climate change and disaster
Popular climate change narratives often identify climate change as the prime trigger of all environmental hazards. Consistent and harmonised framing of this relationship by public media, epistemic communities and established institutions continually shapes and reinforces such narratives. These dominant narratives may present an image of an apocalyptic future beyond the coping capacity of ‘climate victims’ (often identified – implicitly or explici…
Abandoned spaces and bare life in the enclaves of the India-Bangladesh border
Citizenship, abandonment and resistance in the India–Bangladesh borderland
Survival Mobilities
Drawing on ethnography, this paper unravels the intricate relationship between survival tactics and legal status in the complex process of survival mobility in the ungoverned enclaves of India and Bangladesh. In doing so, I explicate the spaces of survival of the undocumented enclave dwellers. The survival mobility in the enclave shows how states’ construction of legal immobility in effect compels illegal mobility. Besides, enclave dwellers’ surv…
Life in de facto statelessness in enclaves in India and Bangladesh
Drawing on conceptualization of statelessness and ethnographic research on crucial insights of rightessness, this paper investigates how the politico‐geographic‐legality constructs statelessness in the enclaves in India and Bangladesh. Following the decolonization process in 1947, both India and Pakistan/Bangladesh inherited more than 200 enclaves, which comprise 80 per cent of the world's enclaves. With improved bilateral relations, India and Ba…
Invisible mobilities
Drawing on ethnography, this paper conceptualizes invisible mobilities by exploring the linkages between mobility, invisibility and hotel and residence based sex work in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Since both are illegal in Bangladesh, hotel and residence based sex workers (HRSWs) become targets of the different laws and sex work related social stigma. We show, in this paper, how invisible mobilities is used to strategize and counter-enact against the exi…
Aspiration and Desperation Traps in Trajectories of Physical and Social Mobility-Immobility
Over the last two decades, Bangladesh has experienced a dramatic shift in terms of female rural–urban migration, often referred to as the feminization of migration. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research on young female migrants’ livelihood experiences in Dhaka and Gazipur, this article makes three contributions to the migration and mobilities literature. First, while migration often constitutes an adequate tool for resolving desperation, it …
Causal connections between climate change and disaster
Popular climate change narratives often identify climate change as the prime trigger of all environmental hazards. Consistent and harmonised framing of this relationship by public media, epistemic communities and established institutions continually shapes and reinforces such narratives. These dominant narratives may present an image of an apocalyptic future beyond the coping capacity of ‘climate victims’ (often identified – implicitly or explici…
Hyper‐Precarious Lives
This article examines the lived experiences of precarity in Bangladesh’s ready‐made garments (RMG) industry, focusing on female migrant workers employed in Dhaka and surrounding industrial areas. Over the past three decades, the growth of the RMG sector has attracted economically disadvantaged rural women, distancing them from their traditional domestic and agricultural roles. This sector predominantly employs young women due to their perceived f…
Lefebvre in the digital city
This paper examines the evolving dynamics of protest in urban Bangladesh by analysing the temporal interplay between public space, activism, and state control. Social movements have played a crucial role in shaping Bangladesh’s political landscape, from the 1971 liberation struggle to the transition to parliamentary democracy in the early 1990s. Over time, the spatial tactics and forms of these movements have shifted. Drawing on ethnography in Dh…
Reconceptualising activism space in the contemporary Global South
This edited volume reconceptualises ‘activism space’ in the contemporary Global South as a dynamic, adaptive and multi-sited formation shaped by colonial legacies, authoritarian repression and epistemic inequality. It critiques Eurocentric frameworks that overlook the situated logics and spatial innovations of resistance emerging under volatile political conditions. Highlighting movements across seven countries (India, South Africa, Palestine, Ir…
Dancing in-between
This paper conceptualises interstitial feminist defiance as a mode of activism that emerges between formal feminist mobilisations and everyday dissent. Drawing on a qualitative case study of the Ekbatan girls’ viral dance in Tehran – a public, unsanctioned act of joy and resistance – we trace how embodied gestures circulate across urban and digital terrains, amplifying feminist struggle under authoritarian rule. These fleeting, often decentralis…
Between Forests and Courts
This article examines how Khasi Indigenous activists in Bangladesh navigate land dispossession under contested environmental governance. Their struggles against commercial tourism, tea estates, rubber plantations and state-sanctioned deforestation often remain marginal to public debate, as media and state agencies tend to align with elite development agendas. In such settings, Indigenous communities without formal land entitlement are required to…
Sociology (10 works) · Political science (9 works) · Politics (8 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Political economy (6 works) · Ethnography (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Geography (4 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (4 works) · Social science (4 works)