Cargando…

Forced displacement: critical lessons in the protracted aftermath of a flood disaster

Forced displacement and resettlement is a pervasive challenge being contemplated across the social sciences. Scholarly literature, however, often fails to engage complexities of power in understanding socio-environmental interactions in resettlement processes. Addressing Zimbabwe’s Tokwe-Mukosi floo...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Mucherera, Blessing, Spiegel, Samuel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8282267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34305267
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10708-021-10471-w
_version_ 1783722980426121216
author Mucherera, Blessing
Spiegel, Samuel
author_facet Mucherera, Blessing
Spiegel, Samuel
author_sort Mucherera, Blessing
collection PubMed
description Forced displacement and resettlement is a pervasive challenge being contemplated across the social sciences. Scholarly literature, however, often fails to engage complexities of power in understanding socio-environmental interactions in resettlement processes. Addressing Zimbabwe’s Tokwe-Mukosi flood disaster resettlement, we explore hegemonic uses of state power during the pre- and post-flood induced resettlement processes. We examine how state power exercised through local government, financial, and security institutions impacts community vulnerabilities during forced resettlement processes, while furthering capitalist agendas, drawing insights from analysing narratives between 2010 and 2021. Concerns abound that multiple ministries, the police, and the army undermined displaced people’s resilience, including through inadequate compensation, with state institutions neglecting displaced communities during encampment by inadequately meeting physical security, health, educational, and livestock production needs. We explore how forcibly resettling encamped households to a disputed location is not only an ongoing perceived injustice regionally but also a continuing reference point in resettlement discussions countrywide, reflecting concerns that land use and economic reconfigurations in resettlement can undermine subsistence livelihoods while privileging certain values and interests over others. Policy lessons highlight the need for reviewing disaster management legislation, developing compensation guidelines and reviewing encampment practices. Analytically, lessons point to how state power may be studied in relation to perspectives on the destruction of flood survivors’ connections to place, people and livelihoods, underscoring the critical need for theorising the relationships between power dynamics and diverse experiences around displacement.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8282267
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Springer Netherlands
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-82822672021-07-19 Forced displacement: critical lessons in the protracted aftermath of a flood disaster Mucherera, Blessing Spiegel, Samuel GeoJournal Article Forced displacement and resettlement is a pervasive challenge being contemplated across the social sciences. Scholarly literature, however, often fails to engage complexities of power in understanding socio-environmental interactions in resettlement processes. Addressing Zimbabwe’s Tokwe-Mukosi flood disaster resettlement, we explore hegemonic uses of state power during the pre- and post-flood induced resettlement processes. We examine how state power exercised through local government, financial, and security institutions impacts community vulnerabilities during forced resettlement processes, while furthering capitalist agendas, drawing insights from analysing narratives between 2010 and 2021. Concerns abound that multiple ministries, the police, and the army undermined displaced people’s resilience, including through inadequate compensation, with state institutions neglecting displaced communities during encampment by inadequately meeting physical security, health, educational, and livestock production needs. We explore how forcibly resettling encamped households to a disputed location is not only an ongoing perceived injustice regionally but also a continuing reference point in resettlement discussions countrywide, reflecting concerns that land use and economic reconfigurations in resettlement can undermine subsistence livelihoods while privileging certain values and interests over others. Policy lessons highlight the need for reviewing disaster management legislation, developing compensation guidelines and reviewing encampment practices. Analytically, lessons point to how state power may be studied in relation to perspectives on the destruction of flood survivors’ connections to place, people and livelihoods, underscoring the critical need for theorising the relationships between power dynamics and diverse experiences around displacement. Springer Netherlands 2021-07-15 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8282267/ /pubmed/34305267 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10708-021-10471-w Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Mucherera, Blessing
Spiegel, Samuel
Forced displacement: critical lessons in the protracted aftermath of a flood disaster
title Forced displacement: critical lessons in the protracted aftermath of a flood disaster
title_full Forced displacement: critical lessons in the protracted aftermath of a flood disaster
title_fullStr Forced displacement: critical lessons in the protracted aftermath of a flood disaster
title_full_unstemmed Forced displacement: critical lessons in the protracted aftermath of a flood disaster
title_short Forced displacement: critical lessons in the protracted aftermath of a flood disaster
title_sort forced displacement: critical lessons in the protracted aftermath of a flood disaster
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8282267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34305267
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10708-021-10471-w
work_keys_str_mv AT muchererablessing forceddisplacementcriticallessonsintheprotractedaftermathofaflooddisaster
AT spiegelsamuel forceddisplacementcriticallessonsintheprotractedaftermathofaflooddisaster