Misreading the Bengal Delta: Climate Change, Development and Livelihoods in Coastal Bangladesh
Perilously close to sea level and vulnerable to floods, erosion, and cyclones, Bangladesh is one of the top recipients of development aid earmarked for climate change adaptation. Yet to what extent do adaptation projects address local needs and concerns? Combining environmental history and ethnographic fieldwork with development professionals, rural farmers, and landless women, Camelia Dewan critiques development narratives of Bangladesh as a “climate change victim” in her recently published book “Misreading the Bengal Delta: Climate Change, Development and Livelihoods in Coastal Bangladesh”. This monograph examines how development actors repackage colonial-era modernizing projects, which have caused severe environmental effects, as climate-adaptation solutions. Seawalls meant to mitigate against cyclones and rising sea levels instead silt up waterways and induce drainage-related flooding. Other adaptation projects, from saline aquaculture to high-yield agriculture, threaten soil fertility, biodiversity, and livelihoods. Bangladesh’s environmental crisis goes beyond climate change, extending to coastal vulnerabilities that are entwined with underemployment, debt, and the lack of universal healthcare.
In this book talk, Dewan analyzes how development actors create flawed causal narratives linking their interventions in the environment and society of the Global South to climate change. Ultimately, such misreadings risk exacerbating climatic threats and structural inequalities.
Link to the press uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295749617/misreading-the-bengal-delta
Date:
2 March 2023, 15:30 (Thursday, 7th week, Hilary 2023)
Venue:
Dyson Perrins Building, off South Parks Road OX1 3QY
Venue Details:
Main Lecture Theatre, School of Geography and the Environment
Speaker:
Camelia Dewan (University of Oslo)
Organising department:
School of Geography and the Environment
Organiser:
Ariell Ahearn (School of Geography and the Environment)
Organiser contact email address:
ariell.ahearn@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Part of:
SoGE Economy and Society Cluster Events
Booking required?:
Not required
Cost:
Free
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Ariell Ahearn Ligham
