1 April 2022

Masks of Authoritarianism: Hegemony, Power and Public Life in Bangladesh

Bangladesh has turned into a hybrid regime with an increasingly authoritarian culture that silences critics and oppositions in many brutal ways. How does the increasing authoritarianism of a surveillance state affect people, including society’s outsiders such as rap musicians and homosexuals? How does the edifice of government survive and sustain itself despite the criticism from global human rights organisations?

In this episode Kenneth Bo Nielsen is joined by Arild Engelsen Ruud, Mubashar Hasan, Maha Mirza and Asheque Haque to discuss a new edited volume on Bangladesh, edited by Arild Ruud and Mubashar Hasen titled Masks of Authoritarianism: Hegemony, Power and Public Life in Bangladesh (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)

Arild Engelsen Ruud is professor of South Asia Studies at the University of Oslo.

Mubashar Hasan Adjunct Research Fellow at the Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative (HADRI), University of Western Sydney.

Maha Mirza is a writer, researcher and human rights activist based in Dhaka.

Asheque Haque is a political and security researcher on South Asia currently working with security and human rights issues in a civil society organisation.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen is an Associate Professor at the dept. of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and one of the leaders of the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies.