And, as always, grateful for the (many years of) encouragement, feedback, and solidarity from some wonderful friends, colleagues, and mentors.
11.08.2025 18:16
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And, as always, grateful for the (many years of) encouragement, feedback, and solidarity from some wonderful friends, colleagues, and mentors.
Start of the semester + a big change: I’ve started a tenure-track position at the University of Georgia as Assistant Professor of History & Women’s and Gender Studies. I am excited to continue research and teaching on the global history of gender, health, and medicine.
despite these tensions, celebratory global narratives often abstracted such a politics of development at Comilla for decades, framing it as a replicable model for rural development while erasing its local political economy, and the forms of authoritarian governance it actively constituted.
3/ such practices scaled up to shape national policy, but this development work was never technical -- it was deeply political. at comilla, efforts to reshape reproductive norms led to contestations between local citizens & transnational experts, esp. in the lead-up to bangladesh’s independence.
2/ rural development at comilla targeted the most intimate aspects of people's lives, their sexual and reproductive practices, by creating new pedagogic developmental tools—folk songs, Islamic pamphlets, and midwives turned family planning agents—to blend global population control with local norms.
the article makes three main points. 1/ pilot projects in the global south, such as the one at comilla, are not peripheral to the history of global development. rather, they were key sites in creating development thought and practice.
the article draws from my larger book project and asks: how did a 1960s pilot project in east pakistan (present-day bangladesh) become a global model for rural development, and, a tool for authoritarian governance?
thrilled to share that my article, "The Ghost of Comilla: Authoritarian Biopolitics and Global Development in Rural East Pakistan," is now out in print in the latest issue of @diplomatichistory.bsky.social.
thank you for the encouragement and feedback as i took my sweet time to turn this into a journal article!