When the disaster strikes: Gendered (im)mobility in Bangladesh

Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson

doi:10.1016/j.crm.2020.100237

Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2020.100237

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Abstract

Gender influences people’s behaviour in various ways. This study investigates gendered (im)mobility during cyclone strikes in Bangladesh. During such strikes people have described being unable to move away from environmentally high-risk locations and situations. The Q-based Discourse Analysis used by this study shows how and why gender-roles (im)mobilised people in three coastal locations during the cyclones. People (and especially women) explained that failing to evacuate to the cyclone shelters when a disaster strikes was not uncommon. Gender, or feminine and masculine social roles, played a significant role in these evacuation decisions while facilitating or constraining their mobility. The gendered subjectivities presented different accepted social behaviours and spaces for women and men. In this way, immobility (social, psychological, and geographical) was strongly gendered. Masculine roles were expected to be brave and protective, while female ‘mobility’ could be risky. Women’s mobility therefore ended up being constrained to the home. In other words, when the disaster strikes, everyone did not have the same ability to move. These empirical insights are important to inform climate policy in a way that it better supports vulnerable populations worldwide as they confront global environmental changes today and in the future.

Highlights

The uneven impacts on women from global environmental changes put gender at the frontline of all three 2015 climate agendas (Cutter, 1995, 2017; Wahlström, 2015; UNFCCC, 2015)
Discourse Analysis used by this study shows how and why gender-rolesmobilised people in three coastal locations during the cyclones
Five discourses were identified in Dalbanga South where the selected un-rotated factors explain 48% of the study variance. 34 of the 62 participants were highly associated with the discourses

Summary

Introduction

The uneven impacts on women from global environmental changes put gender at the frontline of all three 2015 climate agendas (Cutter, 1995, 2017; Wahlström, 2015; UNFCCC, 2015). Empirical evidence illustrating gendered vulnerabilities to environmental stress will be crucial to the development of the robust policy frameworks. These scenarios include immobility as vulnerable populations may be unable to escape environmental risks. The literature on climate-induced immobility largely relates to Trapped Populations (Ayeb-Karlsson et al, 2018) – a concept put forward as an effective policy tool to safeguard vulnerable people in a climate changed world (Foresight, 2011; Black et al, 2011, 2013; Black and Collyer, 2014). People are known to migrate away from environmentally risky locations and situations but may be unable to move (Nawrotzki and DeWaard, 2018; Farbotko and McMichael, 2019; Thornton et al, 2019)

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