IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v7y2018i1p14-d127824.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Uncovering Discursive Framings of the Bangladesh Shipbreaking Industry

Author

Listed:
  • S. M. Mizanur Rahman

    (CREIDD Research Center on Environmental Studies & Sustainability, Department of Humanities, Environment & Information Technology, Institut Charles Delaunay, CNRS-UMR 6281, University of Technology of Troyes, 10300 Troyes, France)

  • Chelsea Schelly

    (Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, 1400 Townsend Dr., Houghton, MI 49931, USA)

  • Audrey L. Mayer

    (Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, 1400 Townsend Dr., Houghton, MI 49931, USA
    School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, Michigan Technological University, 1400 Townsend Dr., Houghton, MI 49931, USA)

  • Emma S. Norman

    (Department of Native Environmental Science, Northwest Indian College, Bellingham, WA 98229, USA)

Abstract

Shipbreaking in the Chittagong region of Bangladesh supplies metal to meet the needs of the nation’s construction sector. The shipbreaking industry has received international attention for environmental contamination and workers’ insecurity. However, these issues have been framed without considering the actors that produce them and their associated motives. This paper illuminates the conflicting discourses regarding the industry between two divergent groups of actors. On the one hand, national and international NGOs collaborate to enforce a discourse focused on negative localized impacts. On the other hand, yard owners, yard workers, and local community members forge a counter discourse, focused on positive localized impacts and raising doubts about the origin of the environmental pollutants and occupational standards setting. National and international actors have so far missed the conflicting perspective of workers, yard owners, locals and NGOs. We contend that these divergent discourses involve scalar politics, with one discursive frame focused on localized impacts in order to leverage global resources, while the other situates local communities in the global world system; this confounding of scale leads to ineffective policy formulation. This shipbreaking case study provides a valuable lesson on the importance of listening to and including stakeholders at multiple scales when seeking policies to address localized impacts of a globalized industry.

Suggested Citation

  • S. M. Mizanur Rahman & Chelsea Schelly & Audrey L. Mayer & Emma S. Norman, 2018. "Uncovering Discursive Framings of the Bangladesh Shipbreaking Industry," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-19, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:7:y:2018:i:1:p:14-:d:127824
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/7/1/14/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/7/1/14/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andersen, Aage Bjørn., 2001. "Worker safety in the ship-breaking industries : an issues paper," ILO Working Papers 993473823402676, International Labour Organization.
    2. W. Neil Adger & Tor A. Benjaminsen & Katrina Brown & Hanne Svarstad, 2001. "Advancing a Political Ecology of Global Environmental Discourses," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 32(4), pages 681-715, September.
    3. Jean Hillier, 2009. "Assemblages of Justice: The ‘Ghost Ships’ of Graythorp," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 640-661, September.
    4. Nicky Gregson & Mike Crang & Farid Uddin Ahamed & Nasreen Akter & Raihana Ferdous & Sadat Foisal & Ray Hudson, 2012. "Territorial Agglomeration and Industrial Symbiosis: Sitakunda-Bhatiary, Bangladesh, as a Secondary Processing Complex," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 88(1), pages 37-58, January.
    5. Nicky Gregson & Mike Crang, 2010. "Materiality and Waste: Inorganic Vitality in a Networked World," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(5), pages 1026-1032, May.
    6. Demaria, Federico, 2010. "Shipbreaking at Alang-Sosiya (India): An ecological distribution conflict," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 250-260, December.
    7. repec:ilo:ilowps:347382 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. S.M. Mizanur Rahman & Junbeum Kim & Gilles Lerondel & Youcef Bouzidi & Laure Clerget, 2019. "Value Retention Options in Circular Economy: Issues and Challenges of LED Lamp Preprocessing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-20, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ruth Lane, 2014. "Understanding the Dynamic Character of Value in Recycling Metals from Australia," Resources, MDPI, vol. 3(2), pages 1-16, April.
    2. Yujuico, Emmanuel, 2014. "Demandeur pays: The EU and funding improvements in South Asian ship recycling practices," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 340-351.
    3. Tschakert, Petra, 2016. "Shifting Discourses of Vilification and the Taming of Unruly Mining Landscapes in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 123-132.
    4. Biddulph, Robin, 2018. "The 1999 Tanzania land acts as a community lands approach: A review of research into their implementation," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 48-56.
    5. Anguelovski, Isabelle & Martínez Alier, Joan, 2014. "The ‘Environmentalism of the Poor’ revisited: Territory and place in disconnected glocal struggles," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 167-176.
    6. Lampel, Linda, 2020. "Value capture and distribution in second-hand clothing trade: The role of charity discourses, commercial strategies and economic and political contexts," ÖFSE-Forum, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE), volume 72, number 72.
    7. Denis Gautier & Hélène Dessard & Houria Djoudi & Laurent Gazull & Mamy Soumaré, 2020. "Savannah gendered transition: how woodlands dynamics and changes in fuelwood delivery influence economic autonomy in Mali," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 3097-3117, April.
    8. Michelle Scobie, 2020. "International aid, trade and investment and access and allocation," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 239-254, June.
    9. Jean‐Philippe Venot & Floriane Clement, 2013. "Justice in development? An analysis of water interventions in the rural South," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(1), pages 19-30, February.
    10. Smith, Jo U. & Fischer, Anke & Hallett, Paul D. & Homans, Hilary Y. & Smith, Pete & Abdul-Salam, Yakubu & Emmerling, Hanna H. & Phimister, Euan, 2015. "Sustainable use of organic resources for bioenergy, food and water provision in rural Sub-Saharan Africa," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 903-917.
    11. Mizanur Rahman, S.M. & Mayer, Audrey L., 2015. "How social ties influence metal resource flows in the Bangladesh ship recycling industry," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 104(PA), pages 254-264.
    12. Farrell, Katharine N. & Löw Beer, David, 2019. "Producing the ecological economy: A study in developing fiduciary principles supporting the application of flow-fund consistent investment criteria for sovereign wealth funds," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-1.
    13. Joshua Lohnes & Bradley Wilson, 2018. "Bailing out the food banks? Hunger relief, food waste, and crisis in Central Appalachia," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(2), pages 350-369, March.
    14. Manuschevich, Daniela, 2016. "Neoliberalization of forestry discourses in Chile," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 21-30.
    15. Evan Gach, 2019. "Normative Shifts in the Global Conception of Climate Change: The Growth of Climate Justice," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-18, January.
    16. Petursson, Jon Geir & Vedeld, Paul & Sassen, Marieke, 2013. "An institutional analysis of deforestation processes in protected areas: The case of the transboundary Mt. Elgon, Uganda and Kenya," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 22-33.
    17. Rübbelke, Dirk T.G., 2011. "International support of climate change policies in developing countries: Strategic, moral and fairness aspects," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1470-1480, June.
    18. Samndong, Raymond Achu & Bush, Glenn & Vatn, Arild & Chapman, Melissa, 2018. "Institutional analysis of causes of deforestation in REDD+ pilot sites in the Equateur province: Implication for REDD+ in the Democratic Republic of Congo," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 664-674.
    19. Massé, Francis & Margulies, Jared D., 2020. "The geopolitical ecology of conservation: The emergence of illegal wildlife trade as national security interest and the re-shaping of US foreign conservation assistance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    20. Büscher, Chris, 2023. "Turning poo into profit? The troubled politics of a biogas-based sanitation business model in Mozambique," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:7:y:2018:i:1:p:14-:d:127824. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.