Ashram village: an analysis of resource flows

Abstract

This study is the second of BRAC’s village micro-studies undertaken in the process of training a group of BRAC staff in the essentials of observational research. This kind of research was initiated with a view to gaining a systematic understanding of the social system that operates in the rural areas of Bangladesh and that underpins the resource structure of the village. It was felt that a deep-rooted strategy for the development of the rural sector of Bangladesh could be effectively evolved only if we had a sound grasp of the nature of the traditional institutions. To this end BRAC decided to gain insights that could be developed, analysed and documented through detailed studies of the resource distribution within particular villages. The first of these studies has already been successfully published under the title Who gets What and Why: Resource Allocation in a Bangladesh Village.