ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 presents the main claim of the book that land dispossession has emerged as a means through which Bangladeshi state officials challenge the legitimacy and worth of farmers’ ways of life, who as ethnic minorities, inhabit national, political, and geographical margins. Moreover, conflicts over land in Bangladesh expose the propensity of the governing authorities’ desire to control and eliminate cultural differences for the survival of the nation-state. In uncovering such dynamics, the book argues for a focus on life instead of land, flipping the analytical vantage point. Furthermore, the chapter draws attention to emotions as analytical devices in getting closer to farmers’ experiences of violence and their modalities of agency, unfolding in the process of land dispossession.
