Unfortunately this lecture had to be cancelled.

Lecture by M. Saiful Islam (University of Dhaka)

This lecture examines how the rural Bangladeshi people, being exposed to arsenicosis and living in a precarious environmental condition, are marginalized and stigmatized. Although arsenicosis has mostly been studied as a medical issue, this paper moves beyond such medicalization of arsencosis and illustrates how this disease turns out to be a chronic illness as it has been culturally explained and experienced by the affected people who are living in such a precarious environmental condition in South-western Bangladesh. Precariousness has been used as a powerful conceptual framework to understand how these populations, who are exposed to an extreme arsenic affected environmental condition, are socially excluded from the mainstream due to their illness and body disfigurement, and result in failing social and economic networks of support. I show how they are at heightened risk of vulnerability and exposure to stigmatisation that create a condition of liminality whereby their identity shift from a normal state of being to a stigmatized one.

M. Saiful Islam is an anthropologist and associate professor at the Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka. His research interests include medical anthropology, environment, gender, and sustainable development. He is the author of Rethinking development in South Asia: Issues, perspectives and practices (Cambridge Scholars, 2022), Culture, health and development in South Asia: Arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh (Routledge, 2017), and Pursuing alternative development: Indigenous people, ethnic organization and agency (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015).  

The event will be held in a hybrid format. Please register here to participate via Zoom. For participation on site at ZMO, no registration is required.