The Social and Political Context of Adjustment to Riverbank Erosion Hazard and Population Resettlement in Bangladesh

This paper describes and explains human adjustments to riverbank erosion hazard in the Brahmaputra-Jamuna floodplain of Bangladesh. It critically reviews the dominant theoretical orientations found in the study of natural hazards. Both survey and in-depth anthropological data from Bangladesh villages are used to illustrate certain theoretical limitations of existing hazard studies for understanding social adjustment to hazard and socio-political dynamics of resettlement. The paper suggests that a unified approach integrating perceptual and behavioral variables with socio-political and structural factors is essential to a holistic understanding of the problem of adjustment. Such a perspective requires that human responses be viewed in a broad historical and political-economic context, since options for adjustment are largely products of existing social structure.