The Women Alone

280 Pages·2013·1.55 MB·English

The Women Alone:
Details of Bangladesh Life and Adda

a narrative ethnography, with an accompanying exegesis:

Thinking About Writing About
The Women Alone

Kathryn Susannah Hummel B.A. (Hons)
School of Communication, International Studies and Languages
Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences
University of South Australia

Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
September 2012
Contents

Volume I
List of Illustrations ............................................................................................................ ii
Glossary. ...........................................................................................................................iii
Abstract ............................................................................................................................ v
Declaration ...................................................................................................................... vii
Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................... viii
Overview ........................................................................................................................... ix

Thinking About Writing About ‘The Women Alone’ .........................................................1
Thinking About Writing About .............................................................................. 2
The Book of Bangladesh ........................................................................................ 5
Everybody is a Ghetto ......................................................................................... 25
Freeing the Post- ..................................................................................................34
The Importance of Instinct .................................................................................. 54
The Ways of Tasting ............................................................................................ 66
Still Thinking About Writing About ..................................................................... 82

Volume II
The Women Alone: Details of Bangladesh Life and Adda ............................................. 86

Works Consulted ........................................................................................................... 248
In-text Allusions ............................................................................................................ 266

i
List of Illustrations

All photography is the original work of Kathryn Hummel.

Figure 1 ‘Dhanmondi Morning Metaphor’ Page 1
Figure 2 ‘Dhanmondi Morning Metaphor’ Page 86

ii
Glossary

Throughout The Women Alone I have attempted to explain the meanings of uncommon
foreign words in context (see pp.33). Where this has not been suitable for reasons of
narrative style and fluency, the meanings of words, phrases and acronyms are listed
here, in order of their appearance in the text.

The Bengali calendar, used to structure the ethnography, is also set out below.

bideshi: foreigner
deshi: local
lamba: long, tall
ekjon: one person
Doo-ee (dui): two
cha: tea
wallah: vendor, hawker
apa: sister (Muslim honorific)
didi: sister (Hindu honorific)
accha: OK
taka: currency of Bangladesh
shobji: vegetable curry
bhai: brother (Muslim honorific)
kameez: tunic
Nomoshkar: I bow to you (Hindu salutation)
NGO: non-government organisation
LGBTIQ: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer
Qur’an: Holy Book of Islam
shalwar kameez: trousers and long tunic traditionally worn by women with an orna or
scarf covering the breasts
fatua: short tunic, worn by both genders, especially children
hujja: imam possessed of the highest relationship with God
Insha’Allah: God willing (Muslim)
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achhol: length of sari that hangs over the shoulder
desh: country
da: brother (Hindu honorific)
shombhob: possible
na: no
cheenabadam: peanut
Al-lah (Allah): God (Muslim)
estyle: style
hartal: political strike

Bengali calendar
Grisma/summer: Baishakh and Jyaistha (April-May and May-June)
Barsa/rainy: Asadh and Shraban (June-July and July-August)
Sarat/autumn: Bhadra and Ashvin (August-September and September-October)
Hemanta/late autumn: Kartik and Agrahayan (October-November and November-
December)
Shhit/winter: Paus and Magh (December-January and January-February)
Basanta/spring: Phalgun and Chaitra (February-March to March-April)

iv
Abstract

The narrative ethnography The Women Alone: Details of Bangladesh Life and Adda and its
exegesis Thinking About Writing About ‘The Women Alone’ present the reader with a
multi-genre interpretation of the narratives of four figures (women and woman-
identifying) in contemporary Bangladesh. Originally formulated in reaction to the limited
discourse on women produced by local and international development industries, The
Women Alone interprets varied aspects of the lives of Shadhana, Hasna, Katha and Israt
and compares them, along with my own experiences, to ideas of gender, economics,
education, religion and postcoloniality that commonly define women of—and in—
Bangladesh. Below these narratives is the admission of my subjectivity and of my
imperfect role as an ethnographic researcher, narrative interpreter, feminist, writer,
woman and foreign visitor to Dhaka. A broad text, The Women Alone combines prose and
poetry to express the personal revelations and mundane incidents shared in adda as well
as the ‘illegitimate’ side of anthropology—how the personality, experiences and memory
of the ethnographer affects her fieldwork and relationships with research participants.

While The Women Alone appears to relate straightforwardly details of the lives of
Shadhana, Hasna, Katha, Israt (and myself) in Bangladesh, it in fact presents an intricate
combination of what I wished to know and what each participant wished to tell me.
Various themes weave through The Women Alone, including: identity, time, duty, faith,
family, relationships with men and women; and a sense of place wrought through the
location and culture of Bangladesh. The exegesis Thinking About Writing About ‘The
Women Alone’ addresses these themes as it explains the theoretical reasoning and
ethnographic and creative practice behind my research, beginning with the section ‘The
Book of Bangladesh’ that, in addition, maps the field of literature pertinent to The
Women Alone and highlights how my text fits within it. Issues of power and
representation are addressed in ‘Everybody is a Ghetto,’ with particular emphasis on the
problems and benefits of using English to research and express the narratives of Bangla-
speaking research participants. Connected to this discussion, ‘Freeing the Post-’
describes the balancing of postcolonial theory with ethnographic practice during my
fieldwork in Bangladesh and applies the ontological concept of Gelassenheit to
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postcolonial ethics (Introna 2009). ‘The Importance of Instinct’ continues the discussion,
albeit in reference to ethnographic methodology, of deconstructing the Self–Other
binary and balancing ethnography and self-reflexivity. Finally, ‘The Ways of Tasting’
emphasises ethnographic research methods specific to my Bangladesh fieldwork,
including the ‘indigenous’ method of adda and the formation of an interpretative
trialogue. The narrative ethnographic approach of The Women Alone is echoed in
Thinking About Writing About, with each section of the exegesis beginning with a
narrative reflection that introduces the subsequent theoretical discussion and highlights
the overarching theme of gender.

vi
Declaration

I declare that:
 this thesis presents work carried out by myself and does not incorporate without
acknowledgement any material previously submitted for a degree or diploma in
any university;
 to the best of my knowledge it does not contain any materials previously
published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the
text;
 all substantive contributions by others to the work presented, including jointly
authored publications, are clearly acknowledged.

Kathryn Susannah Hummel

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Acknowledgments

In addition to the staff within the School of Communication, International Studies and
Languages at the University of South Australia, I wish to acknowledge the generous
assistance of the following people during the research and writing of this thesis:

Australia: Bokhtiar Ahmed, Tania Cass, Vicki Crowley, Shanti Gangatharan, Christopher
Gent, Gabrielle Hummel, Pamela Hummel, Peter Hummel, Vicki McCoy, Katie O’Hare,
Maria Russo, Paul Skrebels, Mel Spencer, Jenny Webber, Claire Woods.

Bangladesh: Fakrul Alam, Jesmin Banu, Jo Grzelinska, Hasna Hena, Kaiser Haq, Annica
Ojermark Haq, Lisa Sabrina Haque, Israt, Katha, Rasheed Khan, Shabnam Nadiya,
Sharmin Rahmatullah, Shadhana, Golam Rabbani Shihab, Mohammad Abu Bakar
Siddique, Imam Hossain Sumon, Hasan Al Zayed.

And beyond: Adhiraaj Ray, Naniso Tswai.

Dhonnobad.
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Overview

In gathering the narrative ethnography The Women Alone: Details of Bangladesh Life and
Adda and its accompanying exegesis Thinking About Writing About ‘The Women Alone,’ I
realise how much both texts draw on the idea of balance. Balance not only occurs
between the two as complementary parts of a whole, but in the
evocation/discussion/confrontation of narrative and ethnography, women and men,
Australia and Bangladesh, individual and community, friendship and research, adda and
data collection, poetry and prose; and, above all, creative and theoretical analysis. Since
none of these pairings are oppositional, I have matched and combined them, balancing
creative and theoretical analysis, in particular, without conceding their mutual
exclusivity. Thus, while the introduction of Thinking About Writing About lyrically
establishes an argument essential to the analysis that follows, this overview is a more
orthodox effort to outline The Women Alone and each section of its exegesis: what the
texts are about, how they were conceptualised, conducted and written, what influenced
them, and what original perspectives or practices they bring to the field of
contemporary, cross-cultural ethnographic research and writing.
The title of the narrative ethnography refers to key concepts that foremost require
clarification. The Women Alone describes the position of my research participants—
Shadhana, Hasna, Katha and Israt—in the narrative and in their lives. For even though
they were shared in my company and come under separate focus in the ethnography, the
stories that were told show each woman as solitary in her thoughts, responsibilities and
fate, expressing the fundamental isolation of the individual. The Details of Bangladesh
Life imply no complete biographies of my participants or myself, but unabashedly
subjective narrative fragments that were sometimes volunteered, sometimes led and
sometimes deliberately selected, including those that perhaps should not have been.
Finally, Adda is the pastime popularly defined in Bangladesh as ‘gossiping’ but has
greater meaning as a cultural concept and practice. To make adda is to gossip in a special
way—at its best it is unplanned, uninhibited, lengthy, passionate oral discourse on topics
ranging across the political, social, intellectual and personal. Although my conversations
with my research participants were never as spontaneous as adda unadulterated, when
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