Rural Power Structure Research Articles

Comment on “Formation of a new rural power structure and the failure of gender in utopia: lesbian image and its metaphors in Wildcat Lake”

Comment on “Formation of a new rural power structure and the failure of gender in utopia: lesbian image and its metaphors in Wildcat Lake”

Decaying Rural Power Structure in Bangladesh: An Observation on the Political Institutions of Sherpur Upazila

It is pretty foolish not to expect any changes in society. In dynamic, all the dimensions of society undergo substantial changes over time. The determiner of these changes is plentiful from the time itself to every sing aspect of human behavior along with the societal, political, economic, and natural components that influence the change. Through this inevitable process, the rural power structure, which was traditional and tribal, has gone through many transitional periods and has now started to take a new shape. By using a qualitative technique and studying an Upazila in Bangladesh, this study can suggest that the rural power structure, which is predominantly autonomic, has lost its self-reliance due to financial dependence on the central government. In addition, the growth of partisan politics in rural societies has created a situation in which it is nearly impossible to differentiate between local and national policies. This is a consequence of the problem created by the rise of partisan politics because partisan politics in rural societies have intensified since their inception. Clientelist politics has taken a firm shape in every allocation of values in an agrarian society. Political and judicial institutions like the Shalish and Gram Samaj have almost disappeared or transformed upside-down. Growing disbelief of the residents, dysfunctional institutions, and politically backed rural leaders have failed to win the faith of the majority of the society, clearly indicating a decaying rustic power structure.

Activities of the children stigmatize their mother: perceptions, consequences, and coping in rural Bangladesh

ABSTRACT The study attempts to explore the perceptions, consequences, and coping strategy of mothers subjected to social stigma due to their children’s activities in rural Bangladesh. A questionnaire-based survey was carried out among 218 mothers to investigate social stigma targeted at the mothers stemming from children’s negative traits, behaviors, and activities. It has been learnt from the study that the community people relate children’s behavior with their parents especially blame their mothers and affair case of the children alone represented 69.49% of the respondents. Almost all the stigmatized and non-stigmatized respondents (91.94% of the stigmatized and 100% of the non-stigmatized) perceived that it is very justified that mothers are naturally stigmatized due to children’s negative activities. Stigma often harms network building and social capital as empirical data (53.22%) also revealed that the possibility of building new relationships as exemplified by marriage especially of the daughters were reduced and found difficult. Coping strategies involved a compromise with the rural power structure materialized through fiscal loss of the stigmatized and forced children as expected to the society.

Changing leadership and rural power structure of Bangladesh: A sociological study

The present study attempts to assess the nature of changes occurred in the leadership pattern of rural power structure in Bangladesh. A complete social research of Khalilabad village in Rauzan Upazila of Chattogram district was undertaken to identify rural leaders. Among 912 households, a total of 100 leaders were identified. The information about the changing aspects of rural power structure and the leadership pattern were collected by formal and informal interviews, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), participant observation, and storytelling. Findings showed that majority of the leaders were aged (39%) had no specific lineage status and most of them (96%) were male. Education, personal qualities and affiliation with major political parties were more important factors influencing rural leadership. A remarkable change occurred in the power structure of rural Bangladesh during the last decade, more specifically from 2008 to 2018. Among the elites, the older ones were dominating the villages, whereas, the older some were losing the elite status, because of their lack of positional status and power. In this research It has been seen that some influential people in the village are full of their financial strength The village's power structure has kept itself under control. Those who play a leading role in the arbitrator, 15% of their institutional education (SSC and above) can sign 26.88% of the participants and 32.2% illiterate, and 65% of land ownership is 10 More than acre Profession of profession is 52.14% profession, 32.88% of the business is 3.3% and 11.75% is engaged in other occupations. 80 percent of the powerful people were parents and maternal grandfathers. It also revealed that the rural leaders changed their policy to create and sustain power, such as building business associations, forming party networks involving with different government and non-government organizations and maintaining a good link with local Member of Parliament etc. Finally, it can be said that a significant change occurred in leadership pattern and power structure of rural Bangladesh.

After Silent Revolution: Most Marginalized Dalits and Local Democracy in Uttar Pradesh, North India

There exists a widely held view that a ‘silent revolution’ is occurring in North India. However, a scanty literature deals with how this revolution has changed the distribution of political opportunities on the ground. Drawing on longitudinal and long-term ethnographic research conducted between 2005 and 2015 in a village and its region, western Uttar Pradesh (UP), this article uncovers the complex and contradictory processes of change taking place in the nature of caste and its politicization in contemporary India. By focusing on different caste groups, this article examines the ways in which these groups are responding to recent political changes, particularly in the wake of the extension of reservations in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and the political rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the state of UP. This article shows that there has been a marked change in the relations of domination and subordination between upper castes and the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and the Dalits in the region. However, I argue that despite radical changes in the rural power structure of UP, many Dalit groups remain marginal in local politics and social life. The emerging caste groups such as Jatavs within the Dalits refuse to give space to the aspirations of the most marginalized groups.

Land Reform and Large Landlords in South Korea's Modernization Project

The South Korean land reform was a compensated redistribution of land in the spring of 1950. In conjunction with the uncompensated confiscation of the March 1946 North Korean land reform, the two land reforms eliminated the long-standing landlord system and were a watershed moment in creating different agricultural and economic systems in the two Koreas. Many previous studies have discussed the background, process, and results of the South Korean land reform. This paper argues that the South Korean land reform was not only intended to eliminate the large landlord class, but was a policy package that combined government purchase of land, the transformation of landlords into capitalists, and the sale of land recovered from the Japanese. In this respect, the land reform was a large landlord-centered modernization project that aimed at giving them a soft landing by transforming the landlord class into commercial and industrial capitalists. In addition, this paper examines how the large landlord-centered policy of transferring capital from agriculture to industry was affected by the Korean War and hyperinflation. Finally, this paper discusses how the removal of large landlords from the countryside and their migration to the cities after the land reform influenced the rural power structure, the political consciousness of farmers, agricultural productivity, and the political base of the Syngman Rhee government in the 1950s.

A Tale of Three Villages

This article discusses a set of qualitative data collected in 2004 on changes in formal and informal aspects of local institutions and power in Bangladesh, drawn from three contrasting villages of Greater Faridpur district. It explores the idea that the rural power structure, previously conceived as relatively rigid ‘net’, is in certain ways becoming more open and less constraining to poor people. This loosening of the net takes different forms across the three contexts depending on locality. Each of the three villages is seen to experience a common set of wider institutional pressures from outside, such as increased levels of party politicisation within decentralising politics, different forms of intervention by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and the attempted reform of mechanisms for local dispute settlement. However, the local trajectories of change in each village arising from such interventions is found to vary depending on local circumstances and conditions, as do the implications of change for addressing rural poverty.

The Changing Local Rural Power Structure

This article examines the growth of small local NGOs in Bangladesh which have received far less attention than their larger counterparts. It examines the formation of small NGOs, the strategies of survival they use within the local environment, and their relations with the changing local power structure. NGOs have become more embedded in the local power structure since the 1990s, although the local elite still show mixed attitudes towards NGOs programmes. Organisations emerged in separate decades can be identified with older NGOs depending on securing patrons and resources from the centre, while newer NGOs facing a lack of patrons at the centre have developed strategies to access resources locally. NGO politics in the local area is also associated with changes of political regimes at the national level, and the rise of factional NGO politics can be attributed to conflicts between the NGO elite at the national level. Changes in regime have created opportunities for smaller NGO in pursuing patrons and resources. However, the links between NGOs and the elite does not mean that NGOs do not contribute in important ways to development in rural Bangladesh. But it would be wrong to see their necessarily as part of an independent ‘force for good’ in rural areas and more accurate to see them as ‘embedded’ in local power and politics.

Trials of Nation Making: Liberalism, Race, and Ethnicity in the Andes, 1810-1910

Trials of Nation Making: Liberalism, Race, and Ethnicity in the Andes, 1810-1910

The Reproduction of Clientelism in Regressing Rural Turkey or “Why I Became An ‘Erect Ear’1?”

This article, based on a field research done in July–August 2002, attempts to explain the popularity of the Nationalistic Action Party (NAP) of conservative and ultra-nationalistic tendencies in the touristic and permissive rural sectors of Datca, a peninsula in southwestern Turkey, by the clientelistic networks it manipulates in the villages. It argues that clientelism, far from being repressed by the integrating structures of the market, is reproduced and even reinforced by the conditions that cause and deepen the rural impoverishment. It also demonstrates the realignment of the rural power structures on the model provided by the now eradicated land ownership system. Dr. Ozbudun is teaching History of Anthropological Thought in the Department of Anthropology, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. (clientelism, rural structures of power, rural politics).

The wider impacts of BRAC poverty alleviation programme in Bangladesh

AbstractOver the decades of the 1980s and 90s many poverty alleviation programmes have been implemented in developing countries. Evaluations of such programmes have traditionally looked at their success in increasing the income levels of participants but less at the wider goals of human well‐being. This paper looks at the poverty alleviation programme of BRAC, a large non‐governmental organisation in Bangladesh, and, based on carefully designed studies, presents its impact on selected components of ‘human well‐being’.This study found better child survival and nutritional status in households served by the programme. Simular impacts were also found in other areas such as expenditure patterns, family planning practices and children's education. The studies also looked at the impact on the rural power structure and found a substantial change in the networking relationship of health providers. The likely influence of ‘selectivity bias’ on the above results is also discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Changing Rural Power Structures Through Land Tenure Reforms: The Current Dismal Role of International Organizations

ABSTRACT Agricultural or rural development, although generally considered to be a process to improve the economic and social conditions of poorer groups in rural areas, signifies different things to different people. The meanings vary in terms of priorities to be considered, the means needed to achieve the set goals, and how the principal actors should co-operate. This paper examines the role of leading international agencies in sponsoring land tenure reforms—a role which had vanished from the development agenda in the 1980s and early 1990s, but which has resurfaced in recent years thanks to actions by national and international civil society organizations and to grassroots mobilizations. Promoting reforms in land tenure institutions and relations is key to reducing rural disparity and improving food security, income and family welfare among marginalized rural population groups. But modifying a rural power structure to promote the interests of the poorer and weaker segments of the rural population is a complex process, and the international organizations included in the analysis have focused their activities on less politically sensitive, subsidiary issues, leaving existing rural power structures and relations largely unimpaired. The paper is based mainly on secondary material, combined with primary information and the author's observations of a number of ongoing land reform initiatives.

Coming out of their homesteads?

Bangladesh has experienced a rapid expansion of shrimp farming in the coastal regions in recent years. The increase in both area and production has been influenced by the financial profit motive of rural farmers coupled with high international demands for shrimps and ecological congeniality for shrimp aquaculture. In the past the traditional farming systems in the coastal belts of Bangladesh centred around rice crop. In contrast, the introduction of shrimp aquaculture on a larger/commercial scale has developed shrimp‐based farming systems. Shrimp farming itself is less labour‐intensive than rice cultivation, especially when extensive methods of shrimp culture are practised. Hence, it has reduced on‐farm employment opportunities for rural landless. Nevertheless, shrimp production requires a substantial volume of labour in off‐farm ancillary activities, namely shrimp fry collection, shrimp feed collection, and shrimp processing and packaging for export. Most of this off‐farm work is performed primarily by rural women. This process has engendered a major shift in rural employment and occupational structure in the shrimp belt. Shrimp production has enabled rural women to earn more cash income and to become more active income‐earning members in rural households. While they used to contribute to their share of agricultural work in the homestead before the shrimp cultivation was introduced, now they work mostly outside their homes. This has forced them to stay outside of their homes for longer hours, which limits their time for household duties, more specifically looking after children. All these factors together have implications for the socio‐economic changes in the rural society. The findings that emerge indicate that a range of factors including rural power structure, centre‐periphery issue, rural‐urban migration determine the pattern and extent of employment. It is unclear whether greater employment opportunities for rural women have empowered them or have helped extricate them from various forms of discrimination and exploitation.

Reforming Peasant Production in Africa: Power and Technological Change in Two Nigerian Villages

Differential access to state-allocated incentives, based on socio-economic inequalities in rural society, is commonly assumed to be a key determinant of change in rural Africa. This article argues that, given the spatial diversity of Africa's rural political economies, analysis of the politics of rural change needs to be premised on an appreciation of the multiplicity of social relations through which rural power structures are configured. Data from a field study of a World Bank assisted agricultural development project in Lafia, Nigeria, are used to illustrate the manner in which spatial and inter-community variations in responses to commercialization, cultural divisions and the reorganization of political relations during the colonial era combine to sustain regional power structures which are defined by such differences. A comparative analysis of two village communities at opposite ends of the regional spectrum of commercialization is employed to demonstrate how such power structures provide a framework within which the political conditions of access operate to the advantage of both dominant socio-economic strata and members of particular cultural communities.

Rural workers’ movements and democratisation in Brazil

This article analyses how rural workers constitute themselves as collective political subjects through their participation in social movements. Their role in Brazil's ongoing political transition is evaluated in the context of the authoritarian rural power structures still entrenched in the political system. Rural social movements contribute to democratisation in two respects: as counterweights to authoritarian agrarian elites and the state at the local and regional levels, and as vehicles for transforming and strengthening the political identities of rural workers themselves. Their political capacity is currently limited, however, by their lack of strong ties to intermediate institutions such as unions and political parties.

Ming-Qing Studies in Japan: 1986

In his notes from the Ming History Conference held in Tangkouzhen, Huangshan city, Anhui in October 1985, Mori Masao (Mindai shi kenkyū; 14) describes how lively discussion was sparked by Li Wenzhi's analysis of the extended duration of Chinese feudal society. The question was raised concerning the responsibility of Ming historical studies to eludicate this issue, especially because feudalism as a remnant of the past remains present in socialist China even as that nation presses ahead with the Four Modernizations. The conventional theory in the People's Republic holds that, through the abolition of feudal landholding during the land reform campaigns and the establishment of peasant landownership, the traditional structure of rural control was completely transformed. However, this theory is a purely political principle. The task of actually understanding the nature of the rural power structure on the basis of regional and historical variations has yet to be carried out thoroughly.

The Ayub Khan Era. Politics in Pakistan, 1958-1969.

This is the study of a decade when the Army under General Mohammad Ayub Khan took control of Pakistan amidst turmoil until Ayub was pressured into passing his authority to General Yahya Khan. It is an examination of the character of Ayub Khan's rule, of his dreams of a new Pakistan and of the reasons for his failure to bring it about. This book is divided into two parts. Part I provides a political survey of the events, personalities, and relationships of the Ayub Khan era. Part II links the political events with aspects of the traditional political environment in Pakistan-the bureaucratic legacy, the rural power structure, the urban intelligentsia-that actually shape politics, This book contains a glossary, a two-page map, an appendix, a bibliography, end notes, and an index.

Rural Community Power Structure in India

Rural Community Power Structure in India

Rural Community Power Structure in India

The main focus of studies on community power structure, hitherto, has been on the methodological aspects of the problem. This has led to the relative negligence of the substantive dimensions in the study of community power. While a number of important contributions on community power structure have come from the United States, this is a relatively virgin area of research in non-American, particularly non-Western societies. The present article attempts to fill this gap, to a limited extent, with reference to one of the non-Western societies, namely India. Power structures in four Indian villages are studied with the objective of understanding the relationship between community characteristics and power dispersion. The importance of variables such as community size, caste structure, occupational variations, educational and organizational innovations are examined.

Changing leadership and rural power structure

The present study attempts to assess the nature of changes occurred in the leadership pattern of rural power structure in Bangladesh. A complete household survey of Sutiakhali Namapara village in Sadar Upazila of Mymensingh district was undertaken to identify rural leaders. Among 92 households, a total of 18 leaders were identified by using the positional, the reputational, and the issue participation approach. The information about the changing aspects of rural power structure and the leadership pattern were collected by formal and informal interviews, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), participant observation, and storytelling. Findings showed that majority of the leaders were young (55.56%), had no specific lineage status (38.89%) and most of them (38.89%) were businessmen. Education, personal qualities and affiliation with major political parties were more important factors influencing rural leadership. A remarkable change occurred in the power structure of rural Bangladesh during the last decade, more specifically from 2001 to 2007. Among the elites, the younger ones were dominating the villages, whereas, the older ones were losing the elite status, because of their lack of positional status and power. It also revealed that the rural leaders changed their policy to create and sustain power, such as building business associations, forming party networks involving with different government and non-government organizations and maintaining a good link with local Member of Parliament etc. Finally, it can be said that a significant change occurred in leadership pattern and power structure of rural Bangladesh. Keywords: Power structure; Leadership; Lineage status; Personal qualities DOI: 10.3329/jbau.v6i2.4844 J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 6(2): 429-436, 2008