Abstract
Population mobility is a complex phenomenon as it is ‘multi-causal’. Climate change and environmental stress as a factor inducing population movement is accepted as a single most important strategy to reduce vulnerability and adaptation to climate change. The coastal areas are especially threatened by extreme events like coastal storms along with the relatively slow-onset disasters like sea level rise and the associated beach retreat, salinization and regular inundation. Many of the islands in the Bengal Delta (Sundarbans) are eroding fast inducing population mobility. This paper is based upon a comparative social vulnerability analysis of the communities who have been officially resettled by the West Bengal Government owing to the massive erosion of the Ghoramara Island in Sagar CD Block and those who have been experiencing coastal erosion induced displacement (economically displaced but spatially immobile) but have no access to State support. This study is based on household survey of 240 samples conducted in 2021 and uses the vulnerability framework in conversation with the livelihood framework to assess household level social vulnerability. The analysis brings out how the two institutionally divergent groups emerge nearly equally vulnerable in terms of the assets and capitals that they have access to and the kind of informal networks they access. It emerges that the State support has been inadequate to make the resettled population more resilient compared to the displaced group.
Presenters
Chinmoyee MallikAssistant Professor, Rural Studies, West Bengal State University, West Bengal, India
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2024 Special Focus—The World on the Move: Understanding Migration in a New Global Age
KEYWORDS
Social Vulnerability, Resettled Population, Displaced Population, Sagar Island, Climate Change
