Books

Bangladesh
Promise and Performance

Innovations in Rural Extension
Mele P. Van, A. Salahuddin, Salahuddin Ahmad, Noel P. Magor
Oxford University Press; June 2005

From 1999 to 2004 the PETRRA (Poverty Elimination Through Rice Research Assistance) project explored the development of innovative extension mechanisms through learning by doing process with multiple service providers. Partnerships linked government, non-government and private sectors as appropriate. Topics addressed by the project include seed production, marketing and distribution systems, crop and soil fertility management, post-harvest technologies, mobile pumps, aromatic rice and integrated rice-duck farming in Bangladesh. The methods used include women-led group extension, whole family approach, participatory video and picture songs. This book examines these approaches to extension and assesses their potential for replicability and scaling up. It includes four thematic sections with people-centred case studies and a conclusion with practical applications of the transaction cost theory. This volume will interest a wide range of readers concerned with agricultural extension and rural development.

Bangladesh: Promise and Performance
Rounaq Jahan (Editor)
Zed Books; February 2001

Several of Bangladesh's leading social scientists, as well as American and European scholars, come together in this volume to provide a carefully balanced and comprehensive assessment of the country's first three decades of independence. Combining the fruits of primary research as well as analytic overviews, the contributors provide a unique and up-to-date account of the country's political system, economic performance, and the social ambiguities arising out of Bengalis' multiple identities.
Intended to serve as a text for courses on Bangladesh and South Asian studies, this volume contains contributions written by Bangladeshi social scientists, as well as American and European scholars, who together aim to provide a balanced and thorough assessment of the country's first three decades of independence since 1971. Coverage includes the impact of Islam on politics and the position of women; the country's mixed economic record; the profound social changes arising out of "modernization"; the growing nexus between business and politics; and NGOs and civil society.

Eloquence in Trouble: The Poetics and Politics of Complaint in Rural Bangladesh
James M. Wilce
Oxford University Press; October 2003

This book captures the articulation of several troubled lives in Bangladesh as well as the threats to the very genres of their expression, Lament in particular. The first ethnography of one of the most spoken mother tongues on earth, Bangla, this study represents a new approach to troubles talk, combining the rigor of discourse analysis with the interpretive depth of psychological anthropology.

Compiled by: Sanyat Sattar

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