Geographical Orientation
I am conducting my fieldwork in Testapara *, a town situated
within the greater Rangpur Division of Northwestern Bangladesh. Rangpur is the
northernmost division in Bangladesh, bordering most prominently the Indian
state of West Bengal and to a lesser extent the states of Meghalaya and Assam. Within
this division, Testapara is one of the northernmost towns. The two partitions
of Bengal in 1905 and in 1947, as well as the creation of Bangladesh in 1971,
had significant impacts on the local populations, leading to mass migrations of
Hindus and Muslims into and out of Testapara . The effects of these migrations
are most visible in the land ownership in the area, which mainly consists of
Muslim families who bought or exchanged land with Hindu Zamindars who moved
across the borders. Even today, a significant number of Hindu communities live
alongside Muslim communities in the area. Currently, the area is facing an
influx of people coming from other parts of Bangladesh, due to relatively cheap
land prices and an increasing NGO presence. Concurrently, people are emigrating
from Testapara to other parts of Bangladesh to find work in major cities or
more affluent agricultural regions.
Testapara has a population of
214,317; 49% of whom are women and 51% are men (2001 Census). The town
serves as the Upazila or sub-district center and serves as a small but
important focal point for businesses and administration for the surrounding
village clusters. The town is connected with other parts of the country with a
bus stand and a train station. In between lies the administrative center, housing
the Testapara police station, the local government (Union Parishad) office, and the sub-district (Upazila) office. One of the largest
office buildings in the area houses the government livestock department, which
staffs a veterinarian. Around the administrative center are a primary and
secondary school, a degree college, and a vegetable and meat market known as
the Testapara Bazaar, which leads to
the train station. The market on the opposite side, near the bus stand,
contains the town’s medical dispensaries (for both animals and humans),
stationery, electric, and electronic stores. This market is simply known as the
Testapara bus stand. Both markets are
lined with tea stalls and small restaurants. The two biggest mosques in
Testapara lie near the town’s administrative center and near the Bazaar.
My own residence is near the administrative center in a two story
building. I live upstairs in a room next to the local CARE Bangladesh office
and the landlord lives downstairs. I have dinner with him every day and use the
opportunity to clear up the much confusion that arises during the daytime when
I am in the field. I also have a student who helps me with the Rangpuri dialect
of Bengali and consequently my own limitations with fluently communicating more
complex ideas in standard Bengali without resorting to using English words. His
home is also in one of the communities I am working in.
The town lies alongside of the Testa river, a tributary of the
Brahmaputra, starting in the Indian state of Sikkim. Along its banks, clusters
of houses can be seen from where men throw their nets into the water to catch
small fish. Embedded in the river lie island chars where communities live without much of the infrastructure
found near the town. Corn, which is
more adaptive to the sandy soil, can be found more frequently than rice here.
Most men from the char find work
outside near the town or as far as Dhaka, Tangail and Noakhali, leaving many
women to tend to their homesteads and livestock. On the particular char that I am working in, the
government has set up housing for the many landless people that inhibit the
island. Currently, many of these houses are mainly being used for the storage
of grains and fodder since this are some of the sturdiest and most waterproof
structures in the area. Many families have decided to build thatched huts right
next to these structures for their own shelter.
I have chosen to work in two other field sites other than the char I have mentioned above and both of
them are situated on the mainland. One of the areas is a village cluster
located within a 5 minute walking distance from the bus stand and the other is
located on the banks of the river and near the Testa Bridge which connects
Rangpur district with Lalmonirhat district. I have chosen to work here as well
in the char for two reasons. The
first is to a compare of the political economy of the two areas, specifically
examining how remoteness and migration effects men and women’s work roles. The
second reason is to complicate the dichotomy (including my own) between the char and the mainland. In recent years,
there is been a tendency for government and NGO based development projects to
dichotomize rural Bangladesh into char and
mainland areas. Projects associated with organizations such as UNDP, Concern
Worldwide, CARE Bangladesh, as well as many local NGO’s have concentrated their
efforts to help populations living in the char areas. Moreover, rural
Bangladeshis themselves have their own perceptions of the char and the mainland,
and of the people that inhibit these areas. I hope to explore meaning making at
this particularly interesting intersection, which is formed at both local and
transnational levels.
*I am using the pseudonym Testapara to protect the location and
identity of my interviewees.
Seasonal Orientation
The ongoing interviews have been occurring in the midst of the Boro rice harvesting season when people
have been busy cutting, threshing, and cleaning the husks. Those who can afford
hired labor have men working in their fields cutting rice while women stay near
the homestead tending to the harvested crop, carefully pouring the rice husks
against the wind so that the dust is carried away.
Cattle are left to graze on remaining shrubs and plants on the
harvested paddies while women and men dry the harvested rice stems so that they
can be used as cattle feed. Many use the town’s asphalt as a space to dry the
stems, while others use the yard around their homestead. Both men and women are
often seen doing this work in the town’s main streets, even if men are more
likely venture out into the bigger roads which are more likely to stay dry and
exposed to sunlight. Cattle are tended to mostly by women when men are out
working in the fields. These activities have a particular significance because they
influence and are influenced by recent advances in agricultural technology, fluctuating
harvest seasons, cultural norms about men and women’s work, and a specific type
of transhumance of cattle. These topics will be elaborated on later.
Bangladesh has three main rice harvesting seasons—Amon, Aush, Boro and each of these
correspond to the months of the Bengali calendar. The table below demonstrates how
the months of the 2012-2013 Gregorian years
correspond to the months of the Bengali year 1419 and the rice harvesting
seasons:
Gregorian months
|
Bengali months (modified for Bangladesh)
|
Harvest seasons (information collected during my interviews)
|
Harvest seasons for the seeds produced at the Bangladesh Rice
Research Institute[1]
|
14th April, 2012
|
1st Boishakh, 1419
(Pohela Boishakh or “the
first of Boishakh” which is the Bengali New year)
|
Boro
|
Boro
|
15th May, 2012
|
1st Joishto,1419
|
Boro
|
|
16th June, 2012
|
1st Ashar, 1419
|
Aush
|
|
17th July, 2012
|
1st Shrabon,
1419
|
Aush
|
Aush
|
18th August, 2012
|
1st Bhadro, 1419
|
Aush
|
Aush
|
18th September, 2012
|
1st Asshin, 1419
|
Amon
|
|
18th October, 2012
|
1st Karthik, 1419
|
Amon
|
Amon
|
17th November,
2012
|
1st Ogrohayon, 1419
|
Amon
|
Amon
|
17th December, 2012
|
1st Poush, 1419
|
||
15th January, 2013
|
1st Magh, 1419
|
||
13th February, 2013
|
1st Falgun
|
||
15th March, 2013
|
1st Chaitro
|
Boro
|
According to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)[2], each season corresponds to a certain type of rice grown in a certain ecosystem. Rice varieties
grown in Aush are suitable for “Upland” (higher elevation) areas, rice grown in
Aman is suitable for “rainfed lowlands” and Boro rice is grown mostly on "irrigated
land". The total land used for rice cultivation in Aush, Aman, and Boro seasons
in Bangladesh is 1.3, 5.7, and 3.4 million hectares respectively, making Aman
the biggest harvest of the year.
