This paper critically examines climate reductive translations of floods in Bangladesh and suggests that they act as a toxic narrative infrastructure that silences and makes invisible how flood-protection embankments worsen environmental degradation and exacerbates socio-ecological injustices.
Contribution long abstract
This paper critically examines climate reductive translations of floods in Bangladesh and suggests that they act as a toxic narrative infrastructure that silences and makes invisible how flood-protection embankments, now proposed as adaptation solutions for a drowning Bangladesh, worsen environmental degradation and exacerbates socio-ecological injustices. By drawing on archival research and oral histories, this paper constructs a guerrilla narrative that proposes alternative stories to highlight the complexities of water abundance, water scarcity and water salinity - that are risked being lost when lumped together as 'floods'.