‘I do not like her going to the shelter’: Stories on gendered disaster (im)mobility and wellbeing loss in coastal Bangladesh

Abstract

The literature body on cyclone strikes in Bangladesh suggests that people sometimes fail to evacuate, and that more women than men have died in past disasters. People's reasoning and decision-making leading up to their disaster (im)mobility are strongly embedded in social structures such as gender systems. Subjective non-evacuation behaviours are founded in collective understandings and reproductions of social values. People's perceptions around these values therefore offer important empirical evidence that helps us understand who, how and why some people end up immobile or ‘trapped’ when disaster strikes. This study builds on individual and collective unstructured people-centred storytelling sessions and discourse analysis. The storytelling study captured rich empirical insights around the notions of disaster (im)mobility, and their links to the existing power and gender systems. Three thematic areas were identified including; safe and unsafe spaces for women and men, female and male knowledge, and male and female experiences of ‘internal damages’, trauma and mental ill-health. The insightful storylines of socially immobilising attitudes can support building robust climate policy and DRR frameworks that better protect our most vulnerable people across the globe.