Making a Living : The Livelihoods of the Rural Poor in Bangladesh

Contents: Glossary. Bengali calendar months with equivalent periods in the English calendar. Preface. Introduction: Poverty, capabilities and perverse social capital: the antidote to Sen and Putnam?/Geoffery D. Wood. 1. Making a living: the background/Iqbal Alam Khan and Janet Seeley. 2. The experience of poverty: what does it mean?/Iqbal Alam Khan. 3. Earning a living: the labour market and the poor/Mohammed Kamruzzaman. 4. Accessing a living: the roles organisations and institutions play in poor people\'s livelihoods/S.M. Zubair Ali Khan and Janet Seeley. 5. Building support for a living: the importance of social networks for the livelihoods of the poor/Md. Salim Ahmed Purvez. 6. Surviving on their feet: the importance of migration for the livelihoods of the poor/Munshi Israil Hossain, Iqbal Alam Khan and Janet Seeley. 7. The effects of natural hazards on poor people\'s livelihoods/Gautam Shuvra Biswas. 8. Facing hazards and risks: the vulnerability of rural poor people\'s livelihoods/Sinora Chakma. 9. Finding enough to eat: food insecurity and poor people\'s livelihoods/Ahmed Borhan and Md. Shazzad Hossain. 10. The role of dowry and early marriage in shaping the livelihoods of poor rural women/Nasrin Sultana. 11. Adolescent girls: the silent contributors to the household economy/Md. Azmal Kabir. 12. The livelihoods of the poor: why the labels don\'t fit/Janet Seeley and Iqbal Alam Khan. References. Index.

"To understand the complex picture of poverty and the ways of addressing the issue poses a difficult challenge to development.

This book is about the lives and livelihoods of the poor people of rural Bangladesh. It draws upon the stories they have narrated to a group of researchers over a period of three years. The project aims to understand their livelihood constraints, opportunities and identify key components to help implement development policies and strategies for targeting and reaching out to the poorest. The book also helps to understand the causes of poverty.

Drawing on a conceptual framework based on the livelihoods approach and taking a structured and holistic view of the problem, the contributors attempt to look beyond material poverty. They seek to understand how it \'feels\' to be poor.

The particular constraint faced by women and adolescent girls are the focus of two chapters in the book.

In their recommendations, the contributors take into account that \'livelihood\' is not only constructed of material assets but also from cultural values and identities. The book calls for more attention to be paid to the many ways in which the poorest make a living, so that various programmes for poverty alleviations are responsive to what people do or want to do." (jacket)