Impact of conservation-induced displacement on host community livelihoods: Complicating the DIDR narratives

Abstract

Studies of development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR) and conservation-induced displacement argue that when displaced people are resettled at a new location, their ‘hosts’ suffer impoverishment risks due to loss of common property resources to resettlers. Compensation for host communities, though acknowledged increasingly in policy, is rare in practice. This paper unpackages ‘host community impacts’ by investigating intra-household variations in livelihood impacts in a central Indian host village in a case of conservation-induced displacement. The ability of host households to cope with risks and gain from new opportunities is distributed unevenly along lines of power encoded in caste, class and gender. However, we show that site-specific historical and ecological factors can create contingent and multi-directional livelihood outcomes. Moreover, the overall human development impact on host households varies depending on how old vulnerabilities like low cash income give way to new vulnerabilities related to stronger integration with the market and the developmental state.