Inclusive Exclusion: Constructing a Hindu Minority and the Contradictions of Law and Land Ownership in Bangladesh

This paper examines how a legal doctrine sanctioning land appropriation from a Hindu minority in Bangladesh, the Vested Property Act, constitutes and regulates space, meanings, and subjects. Foregrounding relations of property ownership, I show how the appropriation of private property, embedded in contingent social, political, and cultural relations, shape the making of place, security, and subjectivity. I argue that relations of social inclusion mark minority identities and suggest that the marginalized are directly and indirectly targets of state action. Thus, relations of inclusion are consequential for how rights claims are enacted literally, on the ground, to shape subjects, forms of subjection, and the materiality of lived space. Two spatial scales are noteworthy: the construction of majoritarian regimes, and the contingent practices of rule and subjection. I support this argument with evidence from court records and interviews collected over the past 15 years.