Unpacking the environmental movement in megacity Dhaka: how does the resource mobilisation theory explain local urban complexity?

ABSTRACT

In the Global South, urban policies are heavily influenced by colonial heritages, and people often experience citizens-detached urban development initiatives. The environmental movement is seen as a new addition that might contribute to society’s efforts to achieve equal urban environmental opportunities. The geographical focus of this article is the megacity Dhaka, which is the social, political, and economic capital of Bangladesh. Unfortunately, this hyper-urbanised megacity suffers from a large poverty-stricken population, leading to a gap in environmental services between the poor and rich. In recent years, Dhaka has experienced a growing momentum with the environmental movement, demanding environmental rights and justice. Based on long-term empirical research, this article shows that even though local marginalised people were the key agents of environmental protests and demonstrations, the movements are usually initiated by very small and relatively homogenous social and political elites, who share the common social, cultural, economic, and political identities.

KEYWORDS:

• Dhaka
• environmental movement
• resource mobilisation theory
• urban poor

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Sen (1999) defines “functionings” as the things which a person may value doing or being – simple ones like being able to read and write, being well-nourished and being free from avoidable disease, or complex ones like being able to take part in the life of the community and having self-respect.

2 “Hyperurbanization” or “Overurbanization” is a term which was first used in the 1950s. It describes the phenomenon of the excessive growth of a country’s urban population, relative to its economic growth. This economic growth is usually represented by the size of the industrial labour force (Bairoch 1975).