Coping with Development-induced displacement and resettlement

Development-induced displacement and resettlement have triggered the risk of impoverishing and threatening the livelihood of affected people over the world. In Bangladesh, evictions and displacement are very common phenomena. Although there are the policies to resettle the evicted people in a new location but these are hardly been followed. A few resettlement projects were implemented without addressing the actual housing need, norms, culture and lifestyle of the affected people. Gopalgonj resettlement project is one of them. The project mainly focused to compensate the physical assets by providing them housing unit and less focused in restoring livelihood. When resettlement were done poorly without considering livelihood restoration, resettlers had to struggle to cope with inadequate service provision. For a time period of living in a place, people modified, transform, rearrange their spaces and those strategies help them to cope with the settlement as well as to restore their livelihood. The main objective of this research was- to examine spatial transformation that contributes in social and financial capital to restore the livelihood of the re-settlers of Gopalganj Resettlement Project in Bangladesh. This research is an exploratory research. To find out the contribution of spatial transformation of housing in livelihood restoration, a comparative analysis of livelihood outcome was needed between the households who transform their dwelling units and surrounding space and who do not. Therefore, the case study was adopted as a research strategy to compare findings. Qualitative and quantitative methods were combined to find the answer. In this research, a close-ended questionnaire survey and focus group discussion and visual observation method were used for collecting data from households. In Gopalganj Resettlement, due to eviction and displacement, people become more impoverished in terms of economic and social impact. Displacement and resettlement negatively affected women than men, women are more victimised in terms of income loss. Household monthly income was decreased. The social network of resettled people are destroyed by the displacement and resettlement because of a far and isolated location at the periphery of the city. Moreover, People become more marginalized in terms of lower socioeconomic status in the new location due to joblessness and income loss. spatial transformation of housing is a coping strategy that contributes to minimize those impact. The level of transformations are ranging from internal transformation at the dwelling unit level to external transformation at settlement level. Transformation at dwelling unit level like veranda into income generating space contribute in their monthly income. Some transformations at settlement level help them to reduce their financial expenditure. Social needs like need for the extra and separated room for growing children, higher occupancy ratio motivated resettler to make addition or alteration with their housing units. Culture and lifestyle have also an influence to change the atmosphere of their spaces in settlement level. Transformation at settlement level is the result of some visible output of social capital. To minimize the impact of displacement and resettlement project should pay attention in livelihood restoration. Freedom of dwelling unit extension and alteration should be address in planning and design process. For restoring livelihood, the scope of transformation of housing should be considered in the planning and design then housing will become a productive resource for the low-income resettler.