Climate migrants in Bangladesh : insights into women's vulnerabilities and survival strategies

Abstract

Bangladesh is considered one of the most vulnerable countries in the world due to its unique geographical location, and is set to become even more vulnerable in the face of the inevitable effect of climate change. Bangladesh faces many natural disasters, including tidal surges, cyclones, monsoons, river erosion and floods. Among these, riverbank erosion is considered one of the most devastating. Due to regular and intense river erosion, many families in Bangladesh experience loss of life, home, lands and livelihoods. The repeated losses of lands and livelihoods prompt internal and external emigration. In each affected community, women are more vulnerable than men because of persistent social, economic and political gender disparities. This research aims to examine the vulnerabilities and survival strategies of climate-migrant women in Bangladesh and to look for pragmatic and realistic solutions to reduce their vulnerabilities. To accomplish this, it answers five research questions. First, what are the living conditions faced by climate-migrant women? Second, what survival strategies are climate-migrant women following to address these living conditions? Third, how appropriate is Nussbaum's capabilities approach for understanding the lives of climate- displaced women in Bangladesh? Fourth, how are the capabilities and social capital of climate-migrant women in Bangladesh related to each other? And, lastly, what are the policy recommendations to improve climate-migrant women's living condition? The research findings explore both the antecedents and consequences for the situation of climate-migrant women in Bangladesh. First, the study results show that the cultural and religious constraints that these women experienced kept them from achieving resilience after river-erosion events. Second, the study indicates how the constraints on their resilience became more intense after each event and made them increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters. Further analysis has found that the women's significant reliance on their bonding networks upheld their capabilities and survival strengths. Thus, the loss of bonding networks due to emigration caused severe disempowerment in their lives. Third, this study explores the suitability of Nussbaum's capability lists as a useful framework to examine the current living conditions of climate-migrant women's lives in Bangladesh. Fourth, this thesis also finds that social capital is interwoven with the capabilities of climate-migrant women in Bangladesh.

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English