‘Fishantry as a social domain’: Empirical observations from Bangladesh (Part 2)

Abstract

This article, part two of a comprehensive research, contributes to the debate why fishantry as a social domain deserves separate analytical treatment by way of providing context-specific substantiations and insights from two farming and two fishing villages located in the floodplain and coastal ecosystems of Bangladesh. Part one of the series dealt with the flawed anatomy of the peasantry as a conceptual domain, relegation of fishers in the anthropological and political theorizing and development discourse, and the theoretical debates in favour of a separate taxonomical domain for fishers. This article focuses on the comparative aspects between peasantry and fishantry with further insights concerning the internal differentiation within fishantry. Grounding on the analyses of these two distinct senses of representations and the dialectical interplay between peasantry and fishantry, we argue that in view of changing social and anthropological fields in this new era of realignment, the dynamic dimensions of identities, scope of reconceptualization of social domains, and internally differentiated classes of rural Bengal deserve new attention. There is also a critical need for more thoughts on modifying macro-level policies in favour of fishantry.