| dcterms.abstract | Bangladesh's creative and cultural industries occupy a curious and contested position —
simultaneously celebrated for their economic promise and burdened by the pressures of a globalized creative economy that does not always move on local terms. The traditions are
deep-rooted; the demands are urgent; and the space between them is where most of the
interesting, difficult work happens.
This volume brings together a selection of papers first presented at The Nation and Its
Imaginations: Culture and Creative Industries in Bangladesh, held at Independent University,
Bangladesh on 9–10 April 2026 — the first conference of its kind dedicated to examining CCIs in
this country. The papers collected here do not speak with a single voice. They probe, they
disagree, and in places they complicate the very frameworks — cultural studies, creative
economy theory, cultural policy — that the field conventionally reaches for. That was the
intention.
The conference, and by extension these proceedings, was organised around a core preoccupation: what does it mean to think about Bangladesh's creative and cultural industries not as a sector to be optimised, but as a set of practices, relations, and contested meanings that are shaping — and being shaped by — this country's socio-cultural, political, and economic life?
From film and fashion to digital content, traditional crafts, and street art, the contributions here
trace how cultural capital is leveraged, how local voices are marginalised or amplified, and how
the promises of sustainable development and social equity look from the inside of the industries expected to deliver them.
The papers were selected from one hundred and forty submissions through a peer review
process. That field generated such a response — in the absence of any prior dedicated forum
— is itself a finding worth noting. | |
