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Class, complicity, and capitalist ambition in Dhaka's elite enclaves

Bibliographic Data

ID2616410
AuthorsP R Gilbert (0000-0002-1059-029X, University of Sussex [email protected], corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume2018
Issue81
Pages43-57
Publication date2018-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFocaal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0920-1297 • E-ISSN: 1558-5263
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3167/fcl.2018.810104
OpenAlexW2810355175
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited50

This article draws on ethnographic work carried out in London and Dhaka as part of a multisited project exploring the production of investment opportunities for (predominantly British) companies in Bangladesh. Focusing on the ready-made garments (RMG) sector in the run-up to, and in the wake of, the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse, I trace aid-funded attempts to improve Bangladesh's investment climate and 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

Complicity · Economics · Economy · Elite · Ethnography · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Engineering · Law · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Water Governance and Infrastructure

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Unique citing works7
Citations per year0,88
Citation span2018 - 2022 (5)
Citation velocityhistorical
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 7

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