Re-negotiating ‘neoliberalised spaces’ in the Global South periphery: an ethnographic case study of post-pandemic Bangladesh

The advent of neoliberalism in the 1980s in the West drastically transformed spatial relations, leading to the neoliberalisation of space across the globe. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this process—and the resulting ‘neoliberalised spaces’—was disrupted, necessitating renegotiation. In this article, I explore the ongoing process of re-negotiating neoliberalised spaces in the post-pandemic era within the periphery of the Global South. Through an ethnographic case study of Bangladesh, I examine how the socioeconomic conditions following the pandemic have compelled actors in these spaces to re-enact boundaries, thereby repositioning their spatial existence. I argue that neoliberalised spaces in the Global South periphery are ‘fractured spaces’—complex amalgamations of the region’s colonial past and the ascendancy of neoliberal capitalism. Drawing on Vandana Shiva’s conceptualisation of nature’s, sustenance and market economies, I propose the existence of two distinct spatial realms: ‘globally implanted’ and ‘locally rooted’. I demonstrate how the former is embedded in neoliberal global capitalism, whereas the latter thrives within Bangladesh’s sustenance economy. In conclusion, I argue that the dynamics of neoliberalised spaces in the Global South periphery in the post-pandemic era are characterised by a process of ‘fragmented becoming’.