The Discordant Development Global Capitalism and the Struggle for Connection in Bangladesh

What happens when a vast multinational mining company operates a gas plant situated close to four densely populated villages in rural Bangladesh? How does its presence contribute to local processes of '¬Üdevelopment'¬"? And what do corporate claims of '¬Ücommunity engagement'¬" involve? Drawing from author Katy Gardner'¬"s longstanding relationship with the area, The Gas Field reveals the complex and contradictory ways that local people attempt to connect to, and are disconnected by, foreign capital.Everyone has a story to tell: whether of dispossession and scarcity, the success of Corporate Social Responsibility, or imperialist exploitation and corruption. Yet as Gardner argues, what really matters in the struggles over resources is which of these stories are heard, and the power of those who tell them. Based around the discordant narratives of dispossessed land owners, urban activists, mining officials and the rural landless, The Gas Field touches on some of the most urgent economic and political questions of our time, including resource ownership and scarcity, and the impact of foreign investment and industrialisation on global development.

Katy Gardner is Professor, of Anthropology at the University of Sussex. She is the author of several books including Global Migrants, Local Lives (1995) and, with David Lewis, Anthropology, Development and the Post-modern Challenge (Pluto Press, 1996).