Moving beyond stereotypes: the role of gender in the environmental change and human mobility nexus

ABSTRACT

Women are often assumed to be most vulnerable to environmental risk and climate change because of often-experienced constraints in mobility. A common-held assumption is that women are fixated in place and experience forced immobility in the context of environmental change, whilst the men can move to other places. In building on feminist and mobilities scholarship, this article critically interrogates this assumption and seeks to move towards a more plural understanding of gender-environment-mobility relations. Through a study of human mobility in coastal Bangladesh, we interrogate what it means for women to stay in places of environmental and climate risk and how staying may hamper or enhance small-scale mobilities. We also examine how labour mobilities by women get increased when moving to urban settlements as a response to environmental changes and lack of work in rural areas. In this manner, we demonstrate how gender-environment-mobility relations do not play out uniformly but are shaped by wider im/mobilities and specific social and environmental contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• environmental and climate change
• human mobility
• mobilities Bangladesh

Introduction

Women are often referred to as those who are most severely affected by climate and environmental change. Especially in in the context of developing country’s lower class and poorer households, women are generally assumed to be more exposed to climate risk than men (Ayeb-Karlsson, 2020a, 2020b; Cannon, 2002; Chindarkar, 2012; Denton, 2002; Seager, 2014; Sultana, 2014). This is partly because women are considered to be less mobile than men due to gendered norms and power relations, leaving them ‘trapped’ in dangerous circumstances. At the same time, despite these genuine concerns and actual risks for women, there has been a call to move beyond dichotomies between men and women and associated stereotypes about im/mobility and exposure to climate risk (Arora-Jonsson, 2011; Evertsen & van der Geest, 2020; Lama et al., 2020; Ravera et al., 2016; Rothe, 2017; Sultana, 2009). As argued by Sultana (2009, p. 428), opposed to seeing gendered norms and social structures as fixated, we should aim to understand ‘gender differences as created through practice and performativity’, and such pay attention to how ‘gender is re/negotiated and re/articulated in various environmental, social and political contexts’. Building on the seminal works of Judith Butler on gender and performativity (e.g. Butler, 1988; 1990), Nightingale has further emphasized in 2006 that the relations between gender and environmental risk are not fixed. They are constantly being performed and, therefore, altered and reproduced through ‘work, discourses of gender, and the performance of subjectivities’ (Nightingale, 2006, p. 166).

This article contributes to plural and situated understanding of women’s im/mobility in the context of environmental and climate change. We will do so by examining gender-environment-mobility relations in flood and cyclone-affected areas in Bangladesh. Whilst relatively a young discipline, research on the relationship between human mobility and environmental change has been rapidly evolving through several case studies and conceptual models (see Black, Adger et al., 2011; Cattaneo et al., 2019: Selby & Daoust, 2021 for the state-of-the-art overviews). Gender has, however, for long been overlooked in much of this literature though now it is gradually gaining more attention (for recent studies see e.g. Ayeb-Karlsson, 2020a, 2020b; Evertsen & van der Geest, 2020; Lama et al., 2020; Lama et al., 2020; Ylipaa et al., 2019). By our case study of coastal Bangladesh, we examine the complex empirical realities in which women can experience less and greater mobility concerning environmental changes, depending on particular contexts and situational settings.

The paper is structured as follows. We offer a literature review of studies on the gender-environment-im/mobility nexus. The subsequent section outlines our case study and the methods used. This is followed by the results and a discussion. The discussion outlines how our findings relate to literature seeking to pluralize the understanding of gender-environment-mobility relations and move beyond stereotypical roles of women in the context of im/mobility and environmental change. Finally, we conclude.

Gender, im/mobility and environmental change

Over the past few decades, the relation between environmental change (including climate change) and human mobility has increased scholarly interest. The number of empirical studies on the subject is thriving (for overviews, see Black, Adger et al., 2011; Piguet et al., 2018; Selby & Daoust, 2021), and so are the conceptual models seeking to understand the role that the environment plays in relation to different push and pull factors of migration (Black, Adger et al., 2011; Morrissey, 2013; Neumann et al., 2015). For long, the field has been characterised by a debate between those arguing climate change plays a prominent role in causing migration and those taking a more nuanced or even opposing view, emphasizing the multi-causality of migration (Piguet, 2013). Over the years, a large section of scholarly community has taken on a ‘pragmatic’ stance to ‘without any claim or ambition to numerically forecast flows of migrants, question […] the role and weight of environmental factors in already-occurring displacements and attempts to build scenarios for the future’ (Piguet, 2013, p. 155). In addition to these discussions on multicausality, there have been concerns about using the term ‘migration’ for it suggests that people affected by environmental risk or climate change will move abroad and long-distances, while most move locally (Boas et al., 2019). To counter this view, there have been calls to instead understand and study these dynamics through the language of ‘environmental’ or ‘climate mobilities’ (Boas et al., 2019; Cundill et al., 2021; Parsons, 2019; Wiegel et al., 2019). These terms, which we also draw on for this paper, do not mean to suggest a direct link between the environment and human mobility but argue for the need to pay attention to the more subtle, everyday, and complex relations between different types and scales of mobilities and environmental change (Kothari & Arnall, 2019; Parsons, 2019).

Questions of gender have thus far received little attention in this burgeoning field of environmental mobilities, though the interest is rising (e.g. Ayeb-Karlsson, 2020a; 2020b; Chindarkar, 2012; Evertsen & van der Geest, 2020; Lama et al., 2020; Sultana, 2014; Ylipaa et al., 2019). Gender is brought into the equation often in a highly binary manner (for a critique, see Lama et al., 2020; Rothe, 2017; Evertsen & Van der Geest et al. 2020). It is warned that women are forced to stay ‘behind’ in vulnerable settings whilst men move to other areas to diversify their livelihoods (see discussions in Evertsen & van der Geest, 2020; Rothe, 2017; for examples, see Chindarkar, 2012; Rabbani et al., 2015; Ylipaa et al., 2019). Such staying ‘behind’ is often considered negative, increasing women’s exposure to climate risk. For instance, Ylipaa et al. (2019), in a case study on climate adaptation in Vietnam, noting how women can lack the rights and decision-making power over resources, such as over farm fields, which they nonetheless have become responsible for after the men have migrated. Due to these unequal power dynamics, they argue, ‘women are unable to access and contribute to knowledge production in order to alleviate the pressing situation they are in, nor possess the power to participate in or influence policy-making’ (Ylipaa et al., 2019, p. 13). Although these are highly valid concerns, such a frame can reinforce binary conceptions of men-female relations in environmental mobilities, and does not take note of other gender types (which is also an omission in our study!). It makes men seen as those highly mobile and resilient to climate risk and the women as immobile and as primary climate victims (Rothe, 2017). Evertsen and van der Geest (2020) argue that such framings mask the level of agency women have or may have, in coping with changing environments. Their analysis shows the increase of female migrants in Bangladesh and subsequently argues for the need to move beyond a largely male-dominated perspective of this process.

This critique of a binary conception of gender relations and subsequent consequences for mobility is not new, and it has been a focal point in the wider scholarly fields of migration, mobilities and gender studies. In the 1970s and 1980s the migration literature represented women as relatively powerless agents in migration processes (Boyd, 1984; Scott, 1986; Simon & Brettell, 1986). Later, such views got critiqued and further pluralized, giving greater attention to the women’s agency in migration processes and the multiplicities of masculinities and femininities in an increasing globalized and mobile world (see for example, Chant, 1992; Connell, 2002; Hondagneu-Sotelo & Cranford, 2006; Mahler & Pessar, 2006; Uteng, 2009; see also Evertsen & van der Geest, 2020; Lama et al., 2020 for more extensive overviews). Mobilities studies have further contributed to these shifts. Notably, Boyer et al. (2017, 850) critique ‘the concept of gender as a “dualism machine” that functions to define and contain difference’. They make a case that conceptions of mobility and immobility may reinforce gender dualism, as men are usually associated with mobility and women with fixated spaces. In critiquing these conceptions, Boyer and colleagues (2017) build on mobilities studies that have emphasized for long that there is no binary between immobility and mobility, but that these intersect in social life (Law, 1999; Sheller & Urry, 2006; Wiegel et al., 2019; Zickgraf, 2018). Furthermore, when staying in place, there is mobility involved, albeit on smaller scales (Blondin, 2021; Boyet et al. 2017; Law 199; Uteng & Cresswell, 2008). In that context, there has been a research call to put ‘stayers in the spotlight’ (Stockdale & Haartsen, 2018), to not equal immobility or staying with being ‘stuck’ and ‘powerless’, but to study ‘staying as an active process’ (Stockdale & Haartsen, 2018, p. 2).

Last but not least, the study of gender has been subject to long-standing debates on intersectionality, introduced in the 1980s and 1990s by postcolonial feminist scholarship (Crenshaw, 1989; 1991; Matsuda 1990; for recent applications in the environmental domain, see Carr & Thompson, 2014; Sultana 2020; Thompson-Hall et al., 2016). Crenshaw (1989) argues that women should not be studied as one homogenous group, as that ‘ignores intragroup difference' in terms of for instance class or race (Crenshaw, 1991, p. 1242). Sultana in the context of research on gender and environmental relations explains (2010, 44): ‘While it is crucial to tease out and understand the differentiated perceptions, experiences and impacts on men and women, it is important not to see men and women as isolated and impervious categories. Women are not a homogeneous group, because intersectionality with class, caste, religion, age, etc. affects the resources, rights and responsibilities that any woman has.’ In that context, Sultana (2020) shows how women in Dhaka do not face equal forms of suppression. For example, women from poor households in informal settlements without registered status and citizenship constantly have to struggle and donate large amounts of time to be allowed access to public water. Wealthier women do not have to engage in these endeavours, as water is piped into houses situated in most formal neighbourhoods.

In the remainder of this article, we will build on these calls for pluralism in studying gender dynamics concerning mobility and environmental change and examine how this plays out in the context of coastal Bangladesh.

Methodology

The areas of study

The research is based on a case study conducted in coastal Bangladesh, given its high exposure to environmental risk and climate change. The coastal area of the Bay of Bengal is highly exposed to extreme weather events, such as cyclones, floods and river erosion, whilst also being low-lying and thus vulnerable to sea-level rise (IPCC, 2014). Due to the existing poverty challenges and patterns of seasonal labour (around agriculture and fishing), there has always been much internal mobility in Bangladesh. For example, people go to the city to find work when the salt production, fishing or rice season is down.

Our research sites are located in: Chattogram, Khulna and Barishal. By examining three different divisions located in the South-West, South-Central and South-East coastal areas of Bangladesh, we aimed to account for diverse regional contexts in the study of the gender-mobility-environment relations. The study in the Chattogram division (the South-East of Bangladesh) concentrated on the island Kutubdia, its diasporic community in the nearby city of Cox’s Bazar, and a wider migrant community in Chattogram. We initially started our research in Kutubdia on the advice of a local NGO,Young Power for Social Action, which witnessed several cases of erosion and cyclone-related displacement from Kutubdia to nearby cities (Cox’s Bazar and Chattogram) and nearby rural (Chakaria) areas.

In the Khulna division in the South-West of Bangladesh, primary data were collected from Satkhira district, Shyamnagar Upazila targeting two villages: Bongshipur village (Ishwaripur union) and Jayakhali village (Kaikhali union). Shyamnagar Upazila was selected as it is the largest Upazila and very vulnerable to climate and environmental risk. The two villages were narrowed down with the help of a local NGO, Shushilan. We selected the villages based on their remoteness and the high prevalence of male and female im/mobilities. The Khulna division is exposed to environmental threats, such as saltwater intrusion, floods, cyclones, tidal surges and other recurrent shocks. People in this region generally move internally from rural areas to urban centres, particularly Jessore, Khulna and Dhaka.

In the division of Barishal in the South-Central of Bangladesh, in the middle of its dynamic delta, the research concentrated on the most southern part of the island Bhola, named Char Fasson. In this site we connected with the NGO Coast Trust who introduced us to the most affected areas of Char Fasson. Parts of Char Fasson are heavily impacted by river erosion and cyclones though the river erosion thus far has had the most impact. The affected people from here move more inland or to new chars (islands) or Dhaka.

Methods

For each field sites our study focused on marginalized communities of relatively low socio-economic status. We held interviews in village areas and households located close to the river or seaside, because these are poor households, as the land close to the river/seaside is generally cheaper (due to flooding and erosion risk) and consists of embankments, which are government lands on which many live rent free. Equally in cities, we focused on informal settlements with no registered status or proper water or sanitation facilities. Also, most of our interviewees were Muslim. In that respect, we did not make specific differentiation in our research selection between class, sexuality, age or religion. This is a limitation of the study needing further research.

The conversations and focus groups with the interviewees were about the personal experiences of people's mobility processes aiming to understand their im/mobility choices and ways of experiencing it (see Table 1 for an overview of the number of interviews and focus groups). These insights were complemented with our field observations to understand better how gender relations play out in daily practice. This was useful to detect gender relations that were deeply ingrained and did not always surface during the interviews. In addition to researching with communities themselves, we interviewed NGO representatives and other researchers to contextualize our results further.

Table 1. Number of field interviews and focus group discussions (please see the notes where we explain why in certain places no focus groups or interviews have been included).

Location	Individual interviews	Focus group discussions
		Groups	Number of participants
Chattogram city (Bastuhara slum)	17 female 11 male (28 total)	2 female groups	5
			6
		2 male groups	4
			5
Cox’s Bazar (Kutubdia Para and Samiti Para)	5 female 5 male (10 total)	N/A^20
Kutubdia, north and east coast (Uttar Dhurung and Kayarbil)	11 female 20 male 2 couples (men and wife interviewed together) (35 total)	3 female groups	7
			7
			7
Shyamnagar, Khulna	20 female 11 male (31 total)	3 female groups	8
			6
			5
		3 male groups	7
			4
			8
Char Fasson, Bhola	N/A^21	2 female groups	6
			7
		1 male group	4

The research has been conducted by three different researchers (the co-authors of this paper). The field research in the Chattogram division was conducted in February–March 2017 by the second author, as part of her master thesis. These insights were further complemented by the first author (also the supervisor of the master thesis), who went to the same sites for six weeks from August to December 2017 and Barishal for 6 weeks in the same period. The research in Khulna was conducted from August 2016 to January 2017 by the third author, for her Ph.D. thesis (in supervision with the first author). Although we are working together at the same institution, and in supervision with the first author, we all did our own interviews and focus groups. Some fieldwork was also part of broader projects that had a broader objective on studying environmental change and human mobility. In these cases, we only included the relevant observations and focus groups from these data. This explains the variations displayed in Table 1.

Analysis

As noted above, there is variation in the amount of interviews and focus groups conducted, as the research has been done by three different people. As such, we have not aimed for a strict comparison between the three cases. Instead, we have shared and discussed our findings to draw out general trends, similarities and differences. We have together reflected on these findings, e.g. sharing our experiences and findings of women’s mobility around the household or their freedom to move once men were away. On this basis, we identified representative examples from our fieldwork that reflected general trends or core differencesin relation to other published literature – as presented in the analysis below.

Results

Seasonal mobility

Many rural activities in Bangladesh are seasonally bound, such as agriculture, fishery and salt production – resulting in seasonal labour mobility when local production is low (Walsham, 2010). The changing climate conditions further shape this temporary human movement. For example, increased salinity at coastal areas resulting from floods and cyclones negatively affects agricultural productivity, leading to low crop yields and a search for employment in other areas. In particular, during stormy and rainy seasons, many men move away to the mainland for work (in construction, the production of bricks, as rickshaw pullers, etc.). In the dry season, they move back to work on the salinated agricultural plots for salt production or dry fish on the beach side.

When the men move to the nearby areas for temporary jobs, many women stay in place. In Khulna, female interviewees, when asked why they ‘stayed’, responded by referring to (i) Lack of resources to travel with the husband, (ii) Women need to stay at home to look after the children and elderly family members, (iii) Strong attachment of ‘belonging’ to the place of origin and (iv) Fear of the unknown city life. The many social constraints and judgements about women who provide an income increase the pressure to stay home or at least, that is how it was viewed in the rural areas under study. Most women we spoke to do not even consider the possibility of working outside the house. They are expected to focus on the household to take care of their children, the elderly, and their few cattle (if any) or poultry.¹ Their household mostly relies on the money from the male members working elsewhere during these times. These remittances are often not enough for basic survival. Women can earn extra money with informal jobs such as making fishing nets, selling milk, selling cow dung, tailoring and producing chillies often referred to as ‘supporting tasks’.² There would occasionally be women doing more structural paid work, such as road construction, including older women. These were often highly marginalized women who lost their husbands and had to take care of themselves under harsh conditions.³

When men are absent, women are more dependent on others to obtain materials from the market and otherwise might need to go themselves, which is against social expectations. In the rural sites under study, the tea stalls, haats⁴ and bazaars⁵ are largely dominated by men, while women are at the homestead.⁶ A female interviewee in Khulna described: ‘Why would I ever go to the market? My husband works in Dhaka city and there is no male member at home at the moment. My relatives live close by. I ask them to buy vegetables and other grocery for me. The market is a place for men, why would women want to go there? How can I go there on my own? Last I visited the market was during Eid’.⁷ During focus groups, women explained they felt uncomfortable going to a market. Being in public spaces such as markets can be shameful, and women can experience stress from the fear of losing their honour (Sultana, 2009). In some of the focus groups, female respondents indicated that alone women can become isolated from the community and suffer from social neglection.⁸

On the other hand, our data also showed how the local community provided over alone women. Men from the surrounding households took on the role of the missing male figure of the woman’s home and were well connected to the family in many cases. There is a mutual trust between these households where women even refer to these men as Bhai or brother (un), consciously suggesting the protecting and care-taking nature of this relationship in the South Asian context.⁹

Some of the research areas even included places consisting of predominantly women (with many of the men being absent). These sites came across as more flexible regarding women’s roles, partly because women’ leadership in such instances. The most interesting place in this respect was in North Kutubdia.¹⁰ This area, also of low socio-economic status, is continuously being affected by tidal flooding since a cyclone has broken the embankment, which did not got well repaired. The incoming seawater has destroyed many agricultural fields and constantly damages the houses. As such, many men have gone elsewhere for work. The area in question is heavily affected and somewhat off the main road. In this setting, it was easier to speak to women alone and the women were highly vocal compared to other research areas. The physical location of the neighbourhood seems to be a facilitating condition for a woman to speak up; being off the road and further away from public spaces resulted in many women walking around. Another factor was the worsening condition of the area, affecting people every day for several years. The dire situation seemed to legitimize the role for the women to take leadership and enhance their mobility in risky circumstances. For instance, during severe floods or after storms, many women we met took their children temporarily away from the island and brought them to friends or relatives until the situation at home was settled again. The first author visited this area several times. At some instances the men were home. Interestingly, confirming our image of these women as highly vocal, that in such instances, the man in question did not try to take over during interviews: the woman was leading the conversation in discussing how the family is dealing with the current floods and what their strategy is.

Relocating

People – including complete families – who left their house permanently often move somewhat more inland or to nearby rural areas or cities. In our study areas, they moved due to erosion or salinization that gradually got worse, often acerbated by a storm. At some point, trying to stay became such a challenge that moving was perceived as the only possibility for them.

The tendency is that families move to the city in different stages. In our research, it was often a male member of the family who moves to the city first. When he is settled, he will ask his whole family to come. A woman going to the city by herself as a pioneer of the family is increasingly happening (see Evertsen & van der Geest, 2020), but is still rarer and less visible. Especially male respondents felt it was not safe for a woman to move to the city alone. Yet, in our study, there were also cases where it happened but then in settings where sleeping was somewhat secure or community-based (e.g. moving in with family, or as a housemaid, or sleeping in a garments factory). For example, in Khulna, women moved on their own to Ashulia and Savar, the garment manufacturing hubs around Dhaka.¹¹ In these cases, they had strong ties or other neighbours, extended family who lived in the neighbourhood before their arrival.

Whilst this process of gradual movement demonstrates that men are usually leading in making the final decision about whether to move or stay, it does not preclude a role for women in this decision-making. In Northern Kutubdia – where many of the men are usually away– we met several women actively designing their futures by finding alternative places to live. A key destination is Chakaria – a region on the mainland just opposite the island Kutubdia. For example, Morsheda, one of the women we met, visits friends and family in Chakaria by herself and asks around for places to live.¹² Although she does so with her husband’s support, she is the one driving the effort to make it happen. Another woman from that area,¹³ let’s call her Joynab, was doing the same, although Joynab and her husband disagree about the idea that moving to Chakaria with the whole family would be a good decision. Her husband is already working in Chakaria and is worried that it will be difficult for him to take care of his family in this new place. He, therefore, prefers them to stay on Kutubdia. Joynab, on the other hand, has a strong desire to move and wants it to happen. She openly mentions this in her community and discusses this during the interviews, also when her husband is present. These examples show that depending on the setting although the husband remains a key agent in the decision-making process, if not the lead agent, women actively try to influence the decision on relocation or even push for it to happen.

Settling in a new place

After moving to a new place, life can drastically change. Whilst some are able to settle in a new rural space, for instance in Chakaria, with a green space, space for cattle, nearby relatives or former neighbours, many of them do not have that luxury. Many people move to informal settlements in urban centres. Also, when moving to the city, people try to connect to their diasporic communities– such as those from Kutubdia moving to Kutubdia para (Kutubdia village) Cox’s Bazar. Those living in Dhaka’s informal settlements who moved from Khulna had a similar approach of organizing people and houses in clusters forming a ‘home’ or neighbourhood ‘away from home’.¹⁴ Still, in several informal settlements in the big cities, this level of community bonding can be limited. Other major changes when moving to the city are losing green space and cattle. Most women in rural areas can do some cultivation or take care of some cattle, forming a key part of their identity.¹⁵ At the same time, the attitude towards income generation by women is less restricted than in the rural case-study areas. Although the traditional gendered roles within the family are still highly dominant, income opportunities for women are available in, for example, garment factories. Interestingly even male interviewees in rural areas indicated that if families moved to the cities, it would be OK for the women to work, whilst around their village, it was considered a sign of poverty and not well accepted.¹⁶ In that sense, moving to the city is also an escape from these social and cultural norms. This was also visible in the use of public spaces. Access to markets around informal settlements was more common than the rural sites under study.¹⁷ Even the tea stalls and lunch places in urban informal settlements included some women though these remained predominantly male-dominated. Of course, this enhanced mobility should not be overly romanticized either, yet it does show a more complex im/mobility relation than often assumed.

When female family members get a paid job in the city, they do, however, also keep on managing the household. Although there is some increase in mobility independence, living and working conditions are tough, if not tougher.¹⁸ For example, a woman in Cox’s Bazar working in a fish drying company explained how she combined cooking breakfast, preparing lunch, and working all together. After lunch, she would go back to work and return late in the afternoon. In the evening, she and her daughter-in-law cooked and did the rest of the household, while their husbands usually waited or socialized with neighbours.¹⁹

Discussion

Pluralizing the gender-mobility-environmental nexus

Our study supports earlier calls to avoid understanding gender relations as fully fixated in social structures, instead to examine how these are ‘re/negotiated and re/articulated in various environmental, social and political contexts’ (Sultana, 2009, p. 428). We saw instances of women being constrained in their small-scale mobility when staying in rural areas, for instance, in going to a market. But we also saw increased levels of labour and market mobility in urban contexts. In rural contexts, we also found that when women experience stress due to extreme weather events, such as cyclones, they take charge when their husbands are away for work and take the lead in finding new housing for their families. This finding aligns with Evertsen & van der Geert’s (2020) results, demonstrating that women are more pronounced agents in decision-making on im/mobility than was earlier perceived in environmental mobilities literature.

In our study, it appeared that women’s mobility went up in specific situational settings, such as when there were lower levels of social control of gender norms (in the case of the Kutubdia village with few men) or in places where more classes mix or pass each other (such as in the city), leading to a more pluralized set of local customs shaping women’s mobility. It also appeared that extreme situations, such as cyclones or other climate risks, allowed women to break the gendered norm that men lead the decisions.

This does not mean that these norms quickly change and lead to substantial new forms of female mobility related to environmental change or other challenges. Resurreccion and Van Khanh (2007) argue that even when traditional roles are switched – for instance, when a woman moves to the city, whilst her husband stays home – the actors involved may actively reproduce the traditional gendered notions of these roles – e.g. by making clear that the switching is temporary or that the women is still the care-taker of the family. This also visible in our case study, for example, how women continued with the care of the household even when doing paid work in the city.

Staying does not equal fixated immobility

Another contribution of our study is a focus on those who stay. Stockdale and Haartsen (2018) noted that most migration literature examines those who move. Equally, Schewel (2020) critiques migration studies’ continuing ‘mobility bias’. And when the focus is on ‘stayers’, these are often referred to as those who ‘stay behind’, suggesting something inferior to moving (Laoire, 2001; Stockdale & Haartsen, 2018). The field of environmental mobilities is also experiencing a rising appreciation of the study of forced and voluntary immobility, or what has also been termed as non-migration (Adams, 2016; Black, Bennett et al., 2011; Blondin, 2020; Farbotko & McMichael 2019; Wiegel et al., 2021; Zickgraf, 2018) although these notions have, to a lesser degree, been studied through a lens of gender relations (Ayeb-Karlsson, 2020a, 2020b). In the context of this rising literature, this study also showed how staying does not equal being ‘trapped’ or ‘behind’. Most women expressed strong connections to their homes in rural areas, basing their identities on their lives and activities close to the house. Staying is not per se something negative (though it can be) and does not equal ‘fixated in place’ (Boyer et al. 2017). This means staying may include choice (Farbotko & McMichael, 2019; Schewel, 2020) as expressed through desires to stay or through everyday im/mobilities playing out on small scales (e.g. around the homestead or in the context of the wider village).

A relational perspective to environmental mobilities

Building on that, our findings support arguments to open up the unit of analysis in the study of environmental mobilities and in relational terms. The one who moves is no homogenous actor-type that rationally responds to push and pull factors of mobility. The male is (a) not the only ‘migrant’ and (b) in a mobility process; more groups and individuals than the ‘men’ in question are involved or affected by it (Evertsen & van der Geest, 2020). Moving to another place, and the decision to do so, is a relational process, also shaped by those who stay in place (Sakdapolrak et al., 2016; Wiegel et al., 2019). In that respect, mobilities and immobilities are mutually constitutive of one another (Sheller & Urry, 2006): the amount of remittances so sent, shape the labour mobilities of women, or the daily experiences of climate risk by women at the homestead inform the families decision-making about long-term mobility (e.g. in terms of relocation). The study of environmental or climate mobilities and migration studies generally, thus need to open up their unit of analysis; to equally consider those who stay or who are involved in other stages of mobility processes, taking into account various gender dynamics.

The study of mobilities has furthermore emphasized how diverse sets of mobilities can intersect and co-shape each other, such as labour or educational mobilities (Sheller, 2018; Sheller & Urry, 2006). This case study equally showed such interrelations in the context of environmental mobilities. Much of the mobility responses related to environmental or climate impacts were informed by the existing trends and dynamics of labour mobility – such as in this case the seasonal mobilities by male members of the rural community and perceptions towards female labour mobility. The most direct environmentally-informed type of mobility was the case of the women from North Kutubdia searching for new homes in Chakaria. Yet, also this mobility was co-informed by other dynamics, such as the lack of adequate governmental measures to protect Northern Kutubdia from the water better. Seeing environmental mobilities as inherently interrelated, or even embedded in, a wider set of mobilities thus helps to understand the gender-environment-mobility nexus in a more plural and situated manner.

Intersectionality

Our research has been limited to specific socio-economic groups of women from relatively marginalized coastal communities in which the majority was Muslim. This means this study has not actively researched other dimensions than gender intersecting with the women’s identities, shaping their practices of im/mobility in the context of environmental risk. Further research in the field of environmental mobilities could centre more explicitly on broader questions of intersectionality (Carr & Thompson, 2014; Sultana 2020; Thompson-Hall et al., 2016). What was striking in Kutubdia was a small sub-village in a coastal area primarily consisting of Hindu families. In the time of our research on this site (2017, done by the first author), the original Hindu village was almost completely taken by the sea. Interestingly, compared to other parts in the same ward in which the village was located, it was much easier to meet and speak with women in the Hindu community, suggesting there are other gender dynamics at play. The women living in some of the affected houses expressed concerns about their relocation. They showed a Hindu temple and how it got broken by a cyclone and sea erosion. On Kutubdia, there are specific sites where they could move to – specifically set apart for Hindu communities –, but several were full or were unprotected from the sun and not very comfortable to live. They mentioned how moving to another area was difficult when these were primarily Muslim-based, as their social connections were large with Hindu families. We have not been able to delve into these accounts in further depth. As such, we have not been able to verify the statements or further research how im/mobility and gender dynamics play out in the case of Hindu communities living in Muslim-dominated spaces. Still, the fact that women were more approachable and that they were facing different hurdles in seeking to relocate suggests that religion has a substantial role in shaping im/mobility dynamics and gender relations. This, next to several other dimensions of identity (e.g. age, or socio-economic class), would be of interest to further examine to obtain a richer understanding of gender and mobility dynamics in Bangladesh in the context of growing environmental and climate risk.

Conclusion

This article studied how gender relations play out in the context of environmental change and human mobility in Bangladesh. We show how gender-mobility-environment relations do not play out uniformly. In doing so, our findings contribute to a pluralization of the understanding and study of these relations. For example, staying in place, whilst the husband moves to another area for seasonal work, may, in some cases, increase women’s mobility used to co-design their families’ futures in environmental change. But for others, it can exacerbate women’s mobility dependencies on other men (e.g. in decision-making on their local mobility to markets). In building on feminist scholarship, we found how these variations, often explained through the intersectionality of social differentiation, also strongly depend on specific situational settings, such as variations between rural or urban spaces or female versus male-dominated social environments. Our study furthermore underscores the need to study of ‘staying’ in the context of environmental change (Adams, 2014; Farbotko & McMichael, 2019; Stockdale & Haartsen, 2018; Wiegel et al., 2021; Zickgraf, 2018). We demonstrated how the small-scale mobilities involved in such staying are gendered yet involve varying levels of agency shaped by specific socio-environmental contexts that can challenge traditional gender dynamics.

Future research could further delve into these dynamics from a perspective of intersectionality, e.g. by analyzing gender, risk exposure and im/mobility dynamics amongst different social classes or religions (e.g. Carr & Thompson, 2014; Sultana 2020; Thompson-Hall et al., 2016). Another area of research, which we did not cover, is to study a wider spectrum of gender types, including transgender people, to more substantially expose ‘gender as a “dualism machine”’ (Boyer et al. 2017, 850).

To conclude, our findings support calls to avoid understanding gender relations in a binary manner. Instead, the study of the gender-mobility-environment nexus can benefit from an open and situational perspective on what these intersections mean in concrete empirical contexts.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their feedback on the paper. In addition, we would like to thank Freek Duynstee, Bibi Joynab, Shoaib Hasnat Sarzil, Hamidul Huq, and the people from YPSA, AVAS, and Coast Trust for their valuable support in making the fieldwork in Barishal and Chattogram divisions possible. Parts of the study of the Barishal and Chattogram divisions were funded by the Netherlands Scientific Organisation (grant number 451-16-030). The study in Khulna division was funded by the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. A special thanks to Shushilan, Dr. Imran Rahman, Dr. Samiya Selim, Brian Shoesmith and Ayesha Khanom for their support of the research in the Khulna division.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ingrid Boas

Dr Ingrid Boas is an Associate Professor at the Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University. Since 2007 Ingrid works on the subject of environmental change and human mobility, studied from the angles of governance, discourse and human geography. She holds a PhD in International Relations (2014), obtained at the University of Kent, on the securitisation of climate migration. Her latest research project was on environmental mobility in the digital age, focused on Bangladesh and Kenya. Her new research project will be on climate change-related mobility in borderland contexts, funded by the Dutch Research Council.

Nine de Pater

Nine de Pater is currently lead-campaigner and researcher on the climate & energy team at the environmental organisation, Friends of the Earth the Netherlands. For which she, amongst other things, co-led the climate court case of Friends of the Earth against the oil company Shell. Prior to joining Friends of the Earth, she studied at Wageningen University. As part of that, she has conducted her master thesis on the gender dimensions in environmental change and mobility in Bangladesh. This thesis was the starting point for this article.

Basundhara Tripathy Furlong

Basundhara Tripathy Furlong is a PhD candidate with the Sociology of Development Change Group and Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University. She is an anthropologist by training and her research interests include climate change, human mobility, gender, resilience, anthropology-development nexus and environment. She obtained her MSc. in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford in 2012 and completed her undergraduate studies from the University of Delhi in Sociology (Hons.). She was a lecturer at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh and carried out empirical research in India and Bangladesh.

Notes

1 Findings from interviews in Kutubdia, including with a local NGO. Findings from field observations in all areas.

2 Based on field observations in rural areas. Findings from interviews in Kutubdia, including with a local NGO. Findings from field observations in all areas.

3 Findings from interviews in Kutubdia, including with a local NGO. Findings from field observations in all areas.

4 Meaning: Weekly markets.

5 Meaning: Local markets.

6 Based on field observations in rural areas.

7 Interviewee, Jayakhali village, Khulna.

8 Findings derived from focus groups on Kutubdia. Interview, environmental sciences researcher at the Bangladesh Agricultural University, March 2017.

9 Based on interviews and focus groups in Khulna.

10 This account in based on a series of interviews and visits to the area.

11 Based on interviews in Khulna.

12 Based on several interviews with Morsheda, which is a pseudonym.

13 Based on several interviews with the person in question, and later also with her husband.

14 Based on observations and interviews in Khulna.

15 Findings derived from field observations, and interviews with women in Chattogram.

16 Based on interviews in Char Fasson.

17 Based on field observations and interviews in Chattogram.

18 Findings derived from focus groups and an interview in Chattogram.

19 Based on observations and interviews in Cox’ Bazar.

20 In Cox’ Bazar we had a mixed focus group session, so we have excluded it from the results. We had initially held more of such sessions also in other research locations. Yet, the answers appeared unreliable and as such we do not draw on them for the analysis. In these sessions, the majority of the answers were usually given by the men. Women did answer but mostly after the men were finished or when questions were explicitly directed to the women. This together hampered the results.

21 The research in Char Fasson was more broadly focused on climate risk and mobility as part of another research project. That project has not specifically focused on questions of gender, and was mostly focused on fishers, largely males. We have, therefore, opted not to include the interviews for this analysis as the focus was different. The focus groups held in that area focused specifically on gender dimensions and they were done to connect to the research on gender done in Kutubdia.