Disaster and Climate Change-Related Displacements and Resettlements: Cultural and Political Ecologies of Space, Power, and Practice

Publication Date

1-1-2019

Document Type

Contribution to a Book

Publication Title

The Angry Earth: Disaster in Anthropological Perspective

Editor

Anthony Oliver-Smith, Susanna Hoffman, Susanna M. Hoffman

DOI

10.4324/9781315298917-39

First Page

345

Last Page

356

Abstract

This chapter focuses on displacement and resettlement associated principally with disasters and climate change. The aforementioned processes constitute imminent risks and human rights crises, and in the case of climate change these are most pronounced for coastal peoples around the globe. The novelty lies in the invocation of climate change to legitimize resettlement. Resettlements are politically charged environments involving complex negotiations between stakeholders and rights-holders, including institutions and multiple local actors with unequal access to both scarce material resources and political power. The challenge inherent in climate and disaster-related displacement and resettlement is to identify means by which the indeterminate spaces can provide certain apertures for the development of human rights and livelihoods. Climate relocations can seem to be an inevitable choice rooted in ecological shifts and anthropogenic climate change. Community relocation involves a dramatic shock to the livelihoods, human-environment relations, and communities’ sense of place.

Department

Anthropology

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