Down and out in Dhaka: understanding land financialization and displacement in austerity urbanism

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines how high levels of eviction and displacement of the urban poor have arisen due to the financialization of land in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Focusing on the Meradia neighborhood of Dhaka, it employs a historical materialist framework to explore the ramifications of the financialization of land and resulting land grabbing. It is argued that the historical transformation of land into fictitious capital in Dhaka has led to heightened displacements and evictions of the urban poor, which have occurred largely through processes of land grabbing by land and real estate development corporations in Bangladesh. Further, it is argued that the municipal and national states play key roles in the displacement of the working poor in Dhaka by facilitating private land development, failing to enforce existing rules on land grabbing, and by having a paucity of urban housing policies and plans for the urban poor.