Understanding Children’s Power in Bangladesh’s Informal Settlements

Abstract

This article explores power from the perspectives of children living in informal settlements in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It draws on empirical evidence gathered through visual, task-based methods with a small group of children and insights from post-structuralism, development sociology and the anthropology and political economy of Bangladesh to argue that children’s power in Dhaka’s informal settlements can be understood not as an instrument some agents use to alter the independent action of others, but as a network of boundaries that delimit the field of children’s social imagination and possibility. To do this, we introduce children’s participation in development studies, showing that the trend has been to exclude children’s perspectives. We give an overview of how power has been conceptualized, drawing on insights from post-structuralism and development sociology to present a theoretical framework for how the child participants in this research understood power. Drawing on contextual literature, we then introduce five boundaries of power which constrain and enable agency for children in Dhaka’s bastees. The visual, task-based methods we employed with a small group of child participants are introduced. We then discuss five boundaries of power from the perspectives of our research participants: social relationships; financial resources; the natural environment; education and children’s work. Drawing links from these findings to existing theories of power, the article concludes by arguing that the operation of power for children in Dhaka’s bastees can be understood as a network of boundaries that delimit fields of social imagination and possibility.

Keywords:

• power
• children
• participation
• Bangladesh
• visual research

Notes

1 Throughout this article, we use the Bengali word bastee to refer to informal settlements or slums.

2 The Gini Index measures the extent to which the distribution of income (or, in some cases, consumption expenditure) among individuals or households within an economy deviates from a perfectly equal distribution. A value of 0 equates to perfectly equal distribution. A value of 1 equates to perfectly unequal distribution.

3 Ethics application number 4000017412 was approved by the Massey University Human Ethics Committee on 28 July 2017.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Harley Hamilton

Harley Hamilton is a development professional, currently living and working in Thailand. His work includes programme design and management, research and monitoring and evaluation. He is interested in participatory programme design that is contextual and responsive to local needs and realities.

Vicky Walters

Vicky Walters is a lecturer in Sociology at Massey University in Auckland. Her research interests are based primarily in South Asia and New Zealand and coalesce around themes in governance, urban environments and the politics of social exclusion and inequality including homelessness, disasters and everyday hazards, food security, gender, and water and sanitation.

Gerard Prinsen

Gerard Prinsen is a lecturer in Development Studies at Massey University New Zealand, after a professional career in development practice. Most of his research revolves around local health and education services as spaces where small, rural, or remote communities negotiate their relationships with big metropolitan powers.