Development as Conscientization: The Case of Nijera Kori in Bangladesh

by Abul Barkat, Sadeka Halim, Avijit Poddar

This book challenges the conventional wisdom of narrowly-defined development which concentrates primarily and decisively on the ‘invisible hand’ of economic development per se – a market-based money-metric approach. This book also shows the limitations of the relatively broadly-defined views on human development due to its “non-class” considerations. To the contrary, this book proposes a framework for understanding true development- development as rights- both Constitutional and justiciable, as inclusion of the excluded (not adverse inclusion), and as a freedom and liberty mediated process. This book not only forwards the argument that sustained development is a conscientization-mediated process, but also attempts to empirically measure “development as conscientization”. Conscientization has been seen as a process by which the learner advances towards critical consciousness which is necessary for informed actions- the key goal of development education. The newness of both the arguments and measurements lies in the fact that the whole exercise has been conducted in a participatory way with the poor and marginalized people implying a deviation from the conventional researchers-defined approach.

460 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2008

About the author

Abul Barkat is a Bangladeshi economist and a professor in the Department of Economics, University of Dhaka. In addition to his teaching, from 2009 to 2014 he was the former Chairman of Janata Bank Ltd. He is the Present elected president of Bangladesh Economic Association. He is a freedom fighter.

Barkat already published 600 research publications. He is credited with 24 research book, 119 journal articles with chapters in research books, 221 research monograph, 232 Research paper present national & International conference. In addition, he has delivered at least 10 public lectures and memorial lectures on national and international issues.