Spatial- and complexity-based perspectives on the ethics of development-induced displacement and resettlement

Abstract

This chapter discusses the Development-Induced Displacement and Resettlement (DIDR); it involves externally initiated spatial and related social changes via a resettlement project that is a complex institutional process. It asks whether perspectives from complexity theory may help in understanding the issues, difficulties with the resettlement process and how best to deal with such problems. Group resettlement arising out of development projects is effectively imposed in development projects such as dams, irrigation schemes, mines and urban renewal projects are initiated from outside. Resettled people tend to find themselves in larger and socially more heterogeneous and complex settlements than before, with access to less space and land, in particular, less arable land. Development-initiated resettlement in many cases involves people having to move off their own land. The chapter suggests a way of working with the ethical tensions through an understanding of the complexity of the resettlement process that spatial imposition sets in motion, and through the metaphor of participatory diagnostics.