Climate Change and Non-Migration: Exploring Place Relations in Rural and Coastal Bangladesh

Increasing environmental stress are becoming a powerful driver of forced migration. Rural and coastal lives and livelihoods in many developing countries, including Bangladesh, are vulnerable to multiple sudden and gradual onset disasters. Growing research and policy interests are the disasters risk reduction and displaced population management.

This qualitative research problematises and expands upon those who are unable and those who are unwilling to migrate through the multidimensionality of place relations. Through 60 semi-structured interviews from four at-risk communities in Kalapara, a rural and coastal hotspot in Bangladesh, the analysis of this study proffers four inter-related dimensions of place relation concerning a) livelihood opportunities, b) place obduracy, c) risk perceptions, and d) social-structural constraints. We introduce the multidimensionality of place relations to explain the human-place relationships under increasing environmental stress, which leads to diverse migratory and non-migratory behaviours.

The result of this study represents a fundamental challenge to climate-induced migration approaches and demonstrates the value of voluntary and involuntary components of place relations in understanding migratory and non-migratory behaviour. Our discussion provides insight into how to best support non-migrant households' limits to adaptive capacity and well-being and build more climate and people-focused disaster risk reduction and displacement policies.