Sheltered: a thesis exploring the link between bhodrota and the sexual subjectivities of Bangladeshi middle-class new adults

This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Social Science in Anthropology, 2022.

التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
المؤلف الرئيسي: Lateef, Zahra Mayeesha
مؤلفون آخرون: Huq, Samia
التنسيق: أطروحة
اللغة:English
منشور في: Brac University 2022
الموضوعات:
الوصول للمادة أونلاين:http://hdl.handle.net/10361/17643
id 10361-17643
record_format dspace
spelling 10361-176432022-12-13T21:01:46Z Sheltered: a thesis exploring the link between bhodrota and the sexual subjectivities of Bangladeshi middle-class new adults Lateef, Zahra Mayeesha Huq, Samia Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Brac University Sheltered Sexuality Bhodrota Middle-class adults Sex education Sex customs This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Social Science in Anthropology, 2022. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (pages 58-60). Sheltered’ explores the cultural taboo about sexuality among the urban middle-class in Bangladesh, i.e. the bhodrolok, and the way it shapes sexuality and sexual norms/expectations. This taboo exists to maintain and reproduce the concept of bhodrota (i.e. respectability) as a part of the bhodrolok’s middle-class identity and neoliberal aspirations. My thesis defines ‘bhodrota’ as the cultural capital of respectability of the bhodrolok class, and includes the embodied practices that reproduces and legitimises it as symbolic capital through a language of normativity and assures the hegemony of the middle-class. But this cultural taboo is also challenged and remixed by new adults from the bhodrolok growing up in a globalised world; thereby, the concept of bhodrota is also challenged and changed as neoliberal aspirations of the bhodrolok are articulated by the new members of their ton. The chosen demographic of my thesis is specifically new young adults from urban middle-class families in their first year of university (ages 19-20). I conducted six in-depth interviews with new adults from this demographic, as well as a key informant interview with the director of KOTHA, the only existing sexuality education programme aimed at middle-class adolescents. Using both secondary research into existing SRH programmes, their evaluations and reports, and primary data from these interviews, I illustrate how the ‘bhodro’ landscape and habitus of middle-class sexuality is created and enacted through the tension of defining and redefining the class identity of the bhodrolok, within structures of heterosexual marriage normativity and homosociality. My thesis demonstrates and explains the burgeoning need for a cultural ‘speakable sexuality’ for the middle-class, as opposed to the existing silence of the taboo, to help adults navigate the anxieties and ambiguities of their sexual subjectivities and discourse in a society burdened by its patriarchal rape culture and its stigmatisation of sexuality. Zahra Mayeesha Lateef BSS in Anthropology 2022-12-13T05:09:03Z 2022-12-13T05:09:03Z 2022 2022-08 Thesis ID 15217002 http://hdl.handle.net/10361/17643 en Brac University theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. 60 pages application/pdf Brac University
institution Brac University
collection Institutional Repository
language English
topic Sheltered
Sexuality
Bhodrota
Middle-class adults
Sex education
Sex customs
spellingShingle Sheltered
Sexuality
Bhodrota
Middle-class adults
Sex education
Sex customs
Lateef, Zahra Mayeesha
Sheltered: a thesis exploring the link between bhodrota and the sexual subjectivities of Bangladeshi middle-class new adults
description This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Social Science in Anthropology, 2022.
author2 Huq, Samia
author_facet Huq, Samia
Lateef, Zahra Mayeesha
format Thesis
author Lateef, Zahra Mayeesha
author_sort Lateef, Zahra Mayeesha
title Sheltered: a thesis exploring the link between bhodrota and the sexual subjectivities of Bangladeshi middle-class new adults
title_short Sheltered: a thesis exploring the link between bhodrota and the sexual subjectivities of Bangladeshi middle-class new adults
title_full Sheltered: a thesis exploring the link between bhodrota and the sexual subjectivities of Bangladeshi middle-class new adults
title_fullStr Sheltered: a thesis exploring the link between bhodrota and the sexual subjectivities of Bangladeshi middle-class new adults
title_full_unstemmed Sheltered: a thesis exploring the link between bhodrota and the sexual subjectivities of Bangladeshi middle-class new adults
title_sort sheltered: a thesis exploring the link between bhodrota and the sexual subjectivities of bangladeshi middle-class new adults
publisher Brac University
publishDate 2022
url http://hdl.handle.net/10361/17643
work_keys_str_mv AT lateefzahramayeesha shelteredathesisexploringthelinkbetweenbhodrotaandthesexualsubjectivitiesofbangladeshimiddleclassnewadults
_version_ 1814308390726270976