Kamrul Hasan, Senior Lecturer (on study leave) at the Department of Economics and Social Sciences (ESS) and a PhD Candidate at the University of New South Wales, presented a brown bag seminar on 12th June at the Student-Teachers’ Lounge of ESS. The seminar topic was “How to make a ‘real’ man?-The social construction of masculinities and men’s sexual health in Bangladesh”. Kamrul provided an overview of his ongoing research project on masculinities and men’s sexual health in Bangladesh. In addition, he shared some initial findings from, as well as reflections on, his fieldwork. Students and teachers of ESS, among others, attended the seminar and took part in a lively discussion on the seminar topic.
On the same day, Adnan M. S. Fakir, lecturer at ESS, presented his working paper on malnutrition at a brown bag seminar. The study looks into estimating the impact of maternal education and income on malnutrition amongst children in Andhra Pradesh, India. The findings of the study imply that income explains only between 0 to 34 percent of improvement in child health; maternal education effect on child nutritional status is stronger in urban areas and among the wealthier; paternal education has greater positive impact for smaller communities, while maternal education for larger communities.
On June 19, ESS invited Dr. Sadek Hamid who presented an overview of the Bangladeshi population in UK by sketching the history of its migration, subsequent patterns of migration, settlement and community formation there. He also outlined some prominent demographic characteristics and distinct socio-cultural challenges facing second and third–generation British Bengalis. Dr Sadek Hamid is a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Liverpool Hope University, UK. He specialises in the study of Muslims in Britain and has written widely about young people, Islamic activism, religious radicalisation, religion and public policy.
Four ESS students shared their experience in undertaking a field work in between Spring and Summer semesters for an ERG study on “Poverty Perception Survey- Public Opinion on the Dimensions of Poverty” at the ESS brown bag seminar on June 19. The Economics students were from Spring 2013 batch. Those present could learn of the different district-level actors and how receptive and/or alien they were to the field enumerators in four districts of the country. Based on the perception of the locals (as they put it, "from the eyes of locals rather than a foreigner"), Nabilah, Raafi, Moontasir and Mehrab shared their new insights into variations in poverty across upazilas in the four districts.
Ahmed Saber Mahmud, Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University, shared his works on Economics of Networks at the student-teacher lounge of ESS department on June 26. He spoke on incentive of manufacturing firms to agglomerate and gave an overview of the previous models of urban agglomeration which is commonly associated with various externalities existing in the cities. He pointed out transportation cost to rural regions should be considered. By locating to a single urban region, firms can access to rural areas directly (without any intermediaries). The main impetus behind agglomeration is to create a hub and spoke network