Routledge Research on Gender in Asia. London and New York: Routledge [imprint of Taylor & Francis Group], 2024. US$180.00, cloth; US$48.00, ebook. ISBN 9781032740607.
Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is one of the world’s fastest-growing cities, expanding annually by 3 to 3.5 percent. From a modest population of 1.8 million in 1972, it has ballooned into a sprawling megacity of 24 million by 2025. By 2030, it is projected to become the fourth-largest city globally.
This rapid urban expansion has been paralleled by the proliferation of slums—over 3,394 of them—highlighting the uneven development that has characterized Bangladesh’s growth. While the country has made notable strides in economic and infrastructural development, as well as in social indicators, the gains have not been equitably distributed.
The residents of Dhaka’s slums form the invisible backbone of the city. They serve the middle and upper-middle classes, sustain the garment sector, and provide essential labour across the informal economy. Many make a living selling flowers, toys, and towels at crowded intersections. Others pull rickshaws, work as day labourers, or take on odd jobs as handymen.
The book under review, written by Sabina Rashid, a medical anthropologist, is an ethnographic exploration of life in Dhaka’s slums. While broadly examining the slum environment, it focuses on a group of young women whose lives are marked by precariousness and vulnerability.
Though media reports occasionally spotlight these slums, in-depth research into residents’ lived precarity is rare. One notable exception is The Spatiality of Livelihoods (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2013), an impressive ethnographic work by German urban scholar Kirsten Hackenbroch. Unfortunately, this important work is not cited in Rashid’s book. Nevertheless, Rashid’s comparative study fills an important gap. With deep empathy and sharp observation, she chronicles two periods, twenty years apart, offering a “before and after” portrait of life in the slums. Her ethnographic study offers an intimate view of life in Dhaka’s slums, particularly the lives of young women facing precarity, hopelessness, and limited choices. Rashid conducted fieldwork in two phases—first in 2002–03 in the Phulbari slum, and later in 2020 in Baniganj.
In Phulbari, during a period of forced evictions, Rashid chronicled the lives of three women: Monsura, Roshonara, and Sayeeda. Each represented different social positions within the slum—a new tenant, a long-term resident, and a health worker with political connections. Despite these differences, all three lived amid instability, with few opportunities to escape poverty. Yet slum life was not devoid of joy—relationships, love affairs, gossip, and family dramas were woven into the everyday.
Rashid contextualized these lives within complex familial and social dynamics shaped by economic hardship, indebtedness, and tenuous community ties. Social capital offered limited but critical support, providing slum residents with a semblance of dignity and resilience.
The 2020 pandemic and ensuing lockdown devastated the informal sector, the primary livelihood source for slum dwellers. Baniganj was adjacent to a once posh residential area which had evolved into a mixed-use zone, with universities, commercial offices, and even garment factories, that provided all kinds of odd but essential jobs to the slum dwellers. Yet the prosperity did not last long. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown came economic collapse for the inhabitants of this slum. With no income and no savings, many slipped from poverty into extreme poverty in no time.
Her second study, carried out between 2020 and 2022, focused on three women: Meena, Shuli, and Fatema. Their experiences echoed those of the earlier cohort—marked by economic vulnerability, fragile family ties, and a constant struggle for survival. Rashid noted internal hierarchies even within slums, such as disparities between landladies and tenants—highlighting inequality within inequality.
Though Bangladesh has achieved spectacular gains in per capita income, education, and health, its poorest urban residents remain highly vulnerable. Illness, accidents, or eviction can instantly unravel any progress, as seen in the case of Meena’s mother, Mita. After being hit by a motorcyclist, Mita was unable to continue working. She turned to begging, a humiliating but necessary step to survive. Meena herself was mugged and lost her job after her employer accused her of lying about the incident.
These narratives reflect broader patterns explored in works like One Illness Away by Anirudh Krishna, which argues that a single misfortune often determines the fate of the poor in South Asia.
The pandemic further intensified these struggles. Unlike the earlier group, all three women in 2020 worked in the informal sector—two sold towels on the streets, and one worked as a domestic help. Government assistance during this time was limited and mostly targeted formal sector workers, particularly in garments. The informal workers in agriculture in the rural areas were the other beneficiaries.
Despite being trapped in cycles of fragility, signs of change are visible. Some of the homes in 2020 slums contain televisions, sofas, and smartphones. The new poor are digitally connected—frequenting TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram during their leisure hours.
Still, basic struggles persist. In slum households, food distribution is often dictated by income contribution, reinforcing harsh survival hierarchies. These stories reveal entanglements of romance, patriarchy, and domestic conflict, all unfolding amid chronic deprivation.
Meena’s story also includes a brief and painful stint working abroad. Driven by poverty, she travelled to Jordan as a housemaid but returned soon after, unable to endure the abuse and isolation, especially separation from her young child. Her story exemplifies the disillusionment with migration as a path out of poverty. This part of the narrative remains, sadly, undeveloped.
Slum residents regularly face threats—from evictions to arrests. Yet, their resistance to indignity remains fierce. They reject sexual exploitation, assert their rights, and cling to values of self-respect in the face of overwhelming adversity. Without stable housing or job security, they remain constantly displaced—what Roshonara once called “children of crows,” evoking a stark image of rootlessness.
Rashid’s work is a “thick description” of urban marginality, while also highlighting the strength of community ties and family bonds as forms of social capital. Through her deeply empathetic and sharply observed accounts, she brings to light the resilience, despair, aspirations, and complex humanity of those who exist on the city’s margins.
Habibul Khondker
Zayed University, Abu Dhabi