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

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Focaal 2018-06, Vol.2018 (81), p.43-57
Main Author: Gilbert, Paul Robert
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actor-network theory
Ambition
Anthropology
Capitalism
Complicity
Economic reform
Elite (Social sciences)
Elites
Ethnography
Exploitation
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
International finance
Investments
Labor costs
Politics
Private sector
Social classes
Social science research
Transnationalism
Upper class
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0920-1297
1558-5263
DOI:10.3167/fcl.2018.810104