Modernity and its Discontents: Studying Environmental History of Colonial and Postcolonial Bangladesh

Abstract

In the cont* of rapid environmental changes in modern Bengal and Bangladesh, ds paper suggests that the problem of well-being-eg. availability of and entitlement r: food, nutrition and social and economic stability-in the region has been intimately related to declining ecological conditions. The paper then offers a critique of an all' pervasive modern knowledge and modernization process that contributed towards this ecological decline. Referring to the fact that the ontological connotation of modernity excluded environmental considerations, this paper argues that contemporary:n environmental crisis can be effectively deal with by an holistic approach through fostering 'ontological unity which refers to a state of internally coherent relation between various branches of knowledge