Paper short abstract:

Community participation in resettlement programmes has been widely adopted. However, evidence shows that the elites control the process and make decisions on behalf of the marginalised. This result to either refusal or minimal adaptation of the resettlement programmes.

Paper long abstract:

The use of bottom up approaches in development programmes has been widely adopted in order to encourage community participation. In particular, this scholarship has been recommended in environmentally induced resettlement. However, the level of community participation in resettlement can be contested. Although different stakeholders have been facilitating consultation meetings prior to resettlement, however, evidence has shown that the elites dominate the decision-making processes. As a result, the elites have the ability either to advocate for resettlement or otherwise based on their interests.

Evidence from the environmentally induced resettlement in Malawi shows the complexities that emerges despite employing bottom up approaches due to the dominance of the elites especially the traditional leaders in the decision-making process. Using both household survey and participatory approaches, it was learnt that traditional leaders were fully informed of the resettlement processes as well as involved in the negotiation of land for resettle. On the other hand, the majority of the community reported that they weren’t consulted to understand their decisions on how, when and where to resettle.

In the long run, this participatory approach that characterises development programmes as participatory whilst involving only the elite people in the community contributed to the different movement dynamics by the resettlers. Thus, the resettlers resorted to moving back and forth to the new settlement, refusing to resettle or returning after being resettled. Therefore, looking at these complexities, the study proposed that the participatory processes needs to be holistic by including even the marginalised people in the community.