Misreading the Bengal Delta: Climate Change, Development, and Livelihoods in Coa

Description: Misreading the Bengal Delta by Camelia Dewan, K. Sivaramakrishnan Perilously close to sea level and vulnerable to floods, erosion, and cyclones, Bangladesh is one of the top recipients of development aid earmarked for climate change adaptation. Yet to what extent do adaptation projects address local needs and concerns? Combining environmental history and ethnographic fieldwork with development professionals, rural farmers, and landless women, Misreading the Bengal Delta critiques development narratives of Bangladesh as a "climate change victim." It examines how development actors repackage colonial-era modernizing projects, which have caused severe environmental effects, as climate-adaptation solutions. Seawalls meant to mitigate against cyclones and rising sea levels instead silt up waterways and induce drainage-related flooding. Other adaptation projects, from saline aquaculture to high-yield agriculture, threaten soil fertility, biodiversity, and livelihoods. Bangladeshs environmental crisis goes beyond climate change, extending to coastal vulnerabilities that are entwined with underemployment, debt, and the lack of universal healthcare.This timely book analyzes how development actors create flawed causal narratives linking their interventions in the environment and society of the Global South to climate change. Ultimately, such misreadings risk exacerbating climatic threats and structural inequalities.Misreading the Bengal Delta is available in an open access edition through the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot, thanks to the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.Open access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295749624 FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Camelia Dewan is postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo. Review "[A] methodologically innovative and rigorous work...The clarity the book offers in identifying the problems around the multiple framings of climate change makes it essential reading for scholars, development practitioners, government policymakers, and general readers interested in climate change and development, Bangladesh, or both." * H-Environment *"Misreading the Bengal Delta is a must-read for every (social) scientist, journalist, activist or development worker who has ever evoked Bangladesh as an instant image of sea-level rise and climate change disasters. It expertly outlines how adaption regimes reproduce existing postcolonial inequalities and adds some much-needed complexity to our understanding of climate change and environmental vulnerabilities in the global South." * Social Anthropology / Anthropoologie Sociale *"Insightful case studies and [a] lucid portrayal of the complex and fluid entanglement of landscapes, people and technologies through time." * Contributions to Indian Sociology *"Accessible and eloquently written...[Dewan] convincingly shows that coherent policy ideas around climate change adaptation first and foremost tend to reflect the viewpoints and interests of policy actors themselves rather than those of the envisioned beneficiaries." * Journal of Peasant Studies *"A superb decolonial ethnography...Misreading the Bengal Delta is essential reading for anyone who wishes to think critically about climate change and its local effects, about the modes through which it is made legible, and about how superficial reading may be avoided through deep decolonial, historical, and ethnographic exegeses." -- Stefan Helmreich * American Anthropologist *"Camelia Dewan brilliantly illustrates how narratives of improvement have acted as metacodes from colonial time to modern day Bangladesh." * Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography *"Uniquely, this work focuses on a variety of development brokers beyond the ubiquitous English-speaking Western development professionals. Through this focus on brokerage in the development-climate nexus, Dewan highlights the problematic power relations currently deciding climate knowledge production and, through it, advising adaptation projects which misread the delta." * South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies *"[Dewan] unveils a perspective on the Bengal delta that is both very intriguing and insightful." * Water Alternatives Book Review *"Dewans account is a rich and nuanced portrayal of how climate change and development practitioners translate climate change into practice, and the effects that these translations have on local communities...A brilliant and urgent ethnography." * Anthropology Book Review *"Dewans book is a timely and well-critiqued ethnography of how development projects targeting to adapt to the impact of climate change can become maladaptation because of the missing local context." * Society and Culture in South Asia * Promotional An unexpected story of climate change initiatives that threaten a complex waterscape Review Quote [A] methodologically innovative and rigorous work...The clarity the book offers in identifying the problems around the multiple framings of climate change makes it essential reading for scholars, development practitioners, government policymakers, and general readers interested in climate change and development, Bangladesh, or both. Promotional "Headline" An unexpected story of climate change initiatives that threaten a complex waterscape Details ISBN029574961X Author K. Sivaramakrishnan Short Title Misreading the Bengal Delta Publisher University of Washington Press Language English ISBN-10 029574961X ISBN-13 9780295749617 Format Paperback Imprint University of Washington Press Place of Publication Seattle Country of Publication United States Year 2022 Pages 254 Publication Date 2022-03-29 AU Release Date 2022-03-29 NZ Release Date 2022-03-29 US Release Date 2022-03-29 UK Release Date 2022-03-29 Birth 1902 Affiliation University of Queensland, Australia Position Customer Qualifications M.D. Illustrations 12 b&w illus., 2 maps, 2 tables Alternative 9780295749600 DEWEY 338.95492 Audience Professional & Vocational Subtitle Climate Change, Development, and Livelihoods in Coastal Bangladesh Series Culture, Place, and Nature We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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