Rural Bangladesh: Competition for Scarce Resources Eirik G. Jansen ISBN 984 05 1093 2 1987 370pp 215x136mm HB Tk.400.00 US$25.00
This study is based upon the author’s extensive field work among the peasants in the rural areas of Bangladesh. It deals with the problems facing the rural population due to scarcity of land and work opportunities.
Different chapters take up the various ways in which ownership of land changes, and how those without land have to compete on the job market and for obtaining land on a sharecropping basis.
The book describes and analyses the various economic strategies rich and poor peasants pursue, and the complex nature of the relationship which exists between them. It discusses why patron-client relationships as a form of alliance between rich and poor peasants are a more typical form of adaptation than alliances based on class interests.
Dr. Eirik G. Jansen has been a Research Fellow at the Chr Michelsen Institute, Bergen, Norway since 1975. From 1976-78 he was a Visiting Scholar at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies. During the last 10 years he has participated in a number of studies and evaluation missions concerning rural development in Bangladesh.
His published works include: The Country Boats of Bangladesh, (co-author, UPL, 1989). He was one of the authors of Rural Poverty in Bangladesh: A Report to the Likeminded Group (North South Institute, Ottawa, 1985), and Bangladesh Country Study and Norwegian Aid Review (Chr Michelsen Institute, Bergen, Norway, 1986).
From late 1987 he is Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Norway/NORAD in Dhaka.
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