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Accepted Paper:

Living with uncertainty and hope on char-land in Bangladesh  
Mohammad Altaf Hossain (University College Dublin)

Paper short abstract:

My aim in this paper is to illustrate char (uncertain river island) dwellers' disaster vulnerability and everyday agency they practise for reducing socioeconomic vulnerabilities such as displacement and precarious livelihoods.

Paper long abstract:

My aim in this paper is to illustrate char (uncertain river island) dwellers' disaster vulnerability and everyday agency they practise for reducing socioeconomic vulnerabilities such as displacement and precarious livelihoods. Keeping in mind that the physical agents—the river and floods—weaken char dwellers' agency, this study has begun by examining the structures that have been historically responsible for creating the conditions under which people, specifically poor and landless peasants, live in temporary island villages. This study considers why the inhabitants of Onishchit Char continue to live in this hazardous place while knowing that their homestead and livelihoods are recurrently exposed to disasters. Their answers vary according to their socio-economic positions, of course, but also according to their accumulated previous experiences. Disasters produce both "uncertainty" and "hope" in their lives. Hazards in such areas are likely to lead to more adversities and disasters, which can be called certain uncertainty. At the same time, even the disasters can deposit fertile sediment for growing crops, and sometimes return previously lost lands. All of this can be called uncertain certainty—the hope that they might be able to grow crops, raise cattle and settle there again.

Panel P27
Anthropologies of uncertainty
  Session 1 Tuesday 3 December, 2019, -