Weeding out the grassroots in a concrete jungle: reflections from Dhaka, Bangladesh

From Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement and Argentina’s Piqueteros, to South Africa’s Homeless People’s Federation and Bangladesh’s Coalition of Urban Poor, collective struggles over land, housing and labour increasingly inform our understandings of social justice in cities of the Global South. However, can this global lens overlook local level complexities? What role do grassroots organisations play? In this post, Sally Cawood takes us to Dhaka, Bangladesh, where she is conducting fieldwork on Community Based Organisations (CBOs) in Dhaka’s informal settlements (bustees). For Sally, unearthing networks of friends, families and neighbours within these organisations, is crucial to understanding social development in context.