Projects per year
Personal profile
Research interests
Mathilde is a Senior Lecturer in International Development in the department since November 2019. Her work takes an interdisciplinary and ethnographic approach to examining the politics of development. In particular, she focuses on how politics and governance shape experiences of inequality, marginalisation and extreme poverty in Bangladesh. She is also interested in the integration of social science perspectives and disciplines to make development interventions and policies more inclusive.
Over the past 15 years, she has provided research and analytical support to a range of international collaborators including development partners and national governments (FCDO, UNCP, UNCDF, IDRC and Save the Children, Oxfam, APPGs in the UK and Bangladesh and the government of Bangladesh) around the themes of social protection, financial inclusion and microfinance, extreme poverty reduction and resilience, and political authority.
Below is a brief overview of some of her recent project - the full list of projects can be accessed under 'Projects'.
- She is the Principal Investigator (PI) for a Policy Support Fund research project engaging with the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, the Planning Commission, Government of Bangladesh and the APPG Groups Extreme Poverty UK and Bangladesh to (1) add new data to our unique qualitative longitudinal dataset which contains lifehistories and wellbeing trajectories of 72 extreme poor households located in the poorest regions of Bangladesh and (2) partner with policy-makers to examine the specific dynamics of intersectionality (ethnic and religious; gender; disability and inter-generationality) and the drivers of spatial inequalities (poverty pockets).
- She also is the PI on an FCDO-commissioned analytical study looking to support the preparation of the chapter on Extreme Poverty Reduction for The Government of Bangladesh’s 8th 5-year Plan, Ministry of Planning, General Economic Division. See our full report here and blog publication here.
- She was Co-I on a research project titled: Consolidating power and shifting coalitions: how state, party and the opposition are changing in Bangladesh funded by the Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre (ESID) at the University of Manchester. The project examined Bangladesh's political transition, the means through which the ruling party is consolidating power, containing political opposition and undermining contestation.
Prior to joining SPS, she held a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Global Development Institute in 2017 for a project titled Navigating Bangladesh's political settlement: microfinance, civil society and possibilities for development to examine the means and processes civil society actors use to navigate the shifting and uncertain political dynamics in Bangladesh.
Between 2014 and 2017, she represented the University of Bath in Bangladesh, on a large-scale extreme poverty alleviation project called EEP/SHIREE - with the mandate to lift one milion households out of extreme poverty. Her involvement in the project included the development of a longitudinal, qualitative data set, gathering life histories of households experiencing extreme poverty. This work was used as evidence to support the establishment of Extreme Poverty in the Government of Bangladesh’s 7th 5-year plan and to furthering understandings of resilience in the context of extreme poverty.
- In 2014, she completed a PhD from the Global Development Institute (then IDPM) at the University of Manchester, where her thesis explored the interaction between microfinance organisations and local social structures in rural Bangladesh, based on deep and sustained ethnographic field research both in rural and organisational settings. She examined the importance and limits to social performance in the organisational context and identified what she called a ‘practice drift’.
Teaching interests
- Researching social change
- Management of international development
- Contemporary Issues in South Asian development
Other responsibilities
I am the current Director of Studies for the following MSc Programmes:
Willing to supervise doctoral students
- Extreme Poverty and Inequality
- Dynamics of marginalisation (gender, race, age and class)
- Politics of contestation
- Civil society and NGOs
- Ethnographic research and participatory research methods
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Education/Academic qualification
Advance Higher Education, Advance HE's Leadership Development in HE for Women, Higher Education Academy
Sept 2021 → Jul 2022
Award Date: 30 Jul 2022
Qualification , Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, University of Bath , Higher Education Academy
Award Date: 1 Feb 2017
International Development, Doctor of Philosophy, The Social Performance of Microfinance Institutions in Rural Bangladesh, University of Manchester
2009 → 2013
Award Date: 15 Sept 2013
International Development, Master of Arts, International Development: Development Management , Global Development Institute, The University of Manchester
Award Date: 27 Sept 2009
External positions
Associate Editor, Canadian Journal of Development Studies
2022 → …
Editorial Board Member, World Development Perspectives Journal
2022 → …
Keywords
- H Social Sciences (General)
- GN Anthropology
- JQ Political institutions Asia
- HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare
- HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
- HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
- HT Communities. Classes. Races
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Study on Analytical support on Extreme Poverty -Bangladesh
Maitrot, M. (PI) & Devine, J. (CoI)
Department for International Development
8/04/20 → 31/03/25
Project: Central government, health and local authorities
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Extreme Poverty and Marginalisation in Bangladesh: Understanding the Drivers and Lessons for Development Cooperation
Maitrot, M. (CoI)
15/01/23 → 30/09/24
Project: Central government, health and local authorities
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Poverty Knowledge and Policy Change in Bangladesh
Maitrot, M. (PI) & Devine, J. (CoI)
1/02/22 → 31/07/22
Project: Research council
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Consolidating power and shifting coalitions: how state, party and the opposition are changing in Bangladesh
Maitrot, M. (PI), Jackman, D. (PI) & Hulme, D. (PI)
1/02/18 → 31/12/18
Project: Research-related funding
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TB & Tobacco PLUS: A plan to integrate and scale up tobacco cessation within the National TB programme in Bangladesh and Pakistan
Siddique, K. (PI) & Maitrot, M. (CoI)
1/01/18 → 30/09/18
Project: UK charity
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The moral economy of microfinance in rural Bangladesh: Dharma, gender and social change
Maitrot, M., 31 Mar 2022, In: Development and Change. 53, 2, p. 335-355Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile5 Citations (SciVal)202 Downloads (Pure) -
Extreme Poverty: The Challenges of Inclusion in Bangladesh.
Ali, Z., Ahmed, B., Maitrot, M., Devine, J. & Wood, G., 1 Sept 2021, Dhaka: Turtle. (Report for the 8th Five Year Plan in Bangladesh.)Research output: Book/Report › Commissioned report
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Discipline, development and duress: the art of winning an election in Bangladesh
Maitrot, M. & Jackman, D., 31 Dec 2023, In: Critical Asian Studies. 55, 3, p. 424-439 16 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access2 Citations (SciVal) -
Family's roles as a welfare pillar: The case of older persons living in extreme poverty in Bangladesh
Akram, O. & Maîtrot, M., 31 May 2023, In: Development Policy Review. 41, 3, e12679.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access3 Citations (SciVal) -
Contestation and Legitimization of Public Authority in Bangladesh
Maitrot, M., 2022.Research output: Contribution to conference › Abstract