1 Published in Linggio Somporko Onnota O Bazaarmukhi Bissayan by Naher, A et al., 2015 Department of Anthropology, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka Gender Understanding in Village Ethnographies in Bangladesh: Some Conceptual Questions We Can Raise. -Zahir Ahmed and Mujibul Anam In this paper we offer our observations concerning the nature of „gender understanding‟ prevalent in existing village studies in Bangladesh. In these, we find the incompatibility of gender discourse as a point of departure. Whilst these observations are based on our longitudinal fieldwork on agriculture related issues in different regions in the country 1 , we intend that what follows will contribute to the wider project of conceptualising gender relations (cf. Alam and Matin, 1984; White, 1992; Ahmed and Naher, 1987; Islam, 2005). This contrasts with a growing body of work on „women‟s role‟ perspectives (cf. Zaidi, 1970; Abdullah, 1974; Arens and Beurden, 1977; Begum and Greeley, 1979; Abdullah and Zeidenstein, 1982) plus a plethora of research on „household and gender‟ in peasant society in Bangladesh (White, 1992; Kotalova, 1993; Wood, 1994; Gardner, 1995). The discussion on „gender understanding‟ is neither to rectify „gender‟ discourse produced in some village studies (e.g. White, 1992:7), nor to arrive at generalisations about the discourse, nor to imply a sceptic which does not exist. Rather, our aim is to reveal how approaches to gender role/position are problematic; because of their narrow focus on women. This brings us to two interrelated conceptual questions. The first of these concerns how women are presented as a distinct category when it comes to material reality (e.g. natural 1 Ahmed, (2000); Ahmed and Anam (2001).