Land expropriation and displacement in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper examines land grabbing in Bangladesh and views such seizures through the lens of displacement and land encroachment. Two different but potentially interacting displacement processes are examined. The first, the char riverine and coastal sediment regions that are in a constant state of formation and erosion, are contested sites ripe for power plays that uproot small producers on their rich alluvial soils. The second examines new patterns of land capture by elites who engage gangs, corrupted public servants and the military to coerce small producers into relinquishing titles to their ever more valuable lands in and near urban areas. These historically specific and contingent land grabs draw attention to in situ displacement, where people may remain in place or experience a prolonged multi-stage process of removal. This contrasts with ex situ displacement, a decisive expulsion of people from their homes, communities and livelihoods. In both the char and peri-urban case, we signal new forms of collective action in response to involuntary alienation of land resources in a rapidly and violently transforming political economy. We conclude with a caution against naturalizing displacement, casting it as an 'inevitable' consequence of changing weather conditions in the former and population dynamics in the latter.

Chevron's gift of CSR: moral economies of connection and disconnection in a transnational Bangladeshi village

“…Accelerated by transnational migration, the privatisation of resources and movement of people from land-based livelihoods to uncertain futures has been widely reported across South Asia (cf : Corbridge, S. and Shah, A. 2013;Ito, 2002;Walker, 2008: Akram Lodhi, 2009Feldman and Geisler, 2012;Adnan, 2013;Adduci, 2009). As these processes gather pace, the poorest people, who have no material assets and are increasingly squeezed out of the precarious agrarian economy, are ever more dependent upon the charity of their patrons.…”

“…Indeed, the country has recently become something of a development success story, reaching various targets of human development 9 and being compared favourably to India on many indicators (Dreze and Sen, 2013: 58-64). As Feldman and Geisler describe, rampant property speculation and 'crony capitalism' are key features, as are dispossession and poverty (cf Feldman and Geisler, 2012;Adnan, 2013). Meanwhile the character of neo-liberal development, and in particular the role of multinationals in the extraction of natural resources, was causing serious political unrest.…”

“Medium-Scale” Forestland Grabbing in the Southwestern Highlands of Ethiopia: Impacts on Local Livelihoods and Forest Conservation

“…Studies from Africa and Asia have documented, albeit implicitly, in situ displacements related to contemporary land appropriations. Examples of such displacements include: large-and mega-scale land appropriations for commercial agriculture in the peripheral lowlands of Ethiopia, which have undermined the livelihoods of pastoralists by limiting the sizes of resources, for instance, land they can access [18,23]; appropriations of communal grazing and farmlands that have weakened the income and food security of smallholder farmers in Bako in Ethiopia [14]; 'multi-stage' dispossessions over longer periods that have had major cumulative effects on small producers in Bangladesh [51]; and out-grower schemes for biofuel and sugar cane in Ethiopia [18,52] and South Africa [53] that have exposed farmers' means of subsistence to new risks, including market vulnerability.…”

Seasonal land cover changes and its effects on essential services of haor and non-haor areas of Kishoreganj district, Bangladesh

“…Several techniques and datasets have been utilized for mapping land cover change detection and it has been changing (Yeung 2011). Techniques based on image radiometry provide satisfactory results in classifying land cover and detecting related change phenomena (Feldman and Geisler 2012). In this respect, multi-resolution segmentation and object-based classifiers are also useful (Ahmed 2014).…”