Explaining Mobility Using the Community Capital Framework and Place Attachment Concepts: A Case Study of Riverbank Erosion in the Lower Meghna Estuary, Bangladesh

Information collected from Focus Group Meetings (FGMs) and key informant interviews (KIIs) from Ramgati Upazilla of Lakshmipur District, Bangladesh, shows that once household members have lost their homes to riverbank erosion, they rarely migrate to distant places and stay in their immediate vicinity. The overwhelming majority of the victims rebuild their homes in nearby places on the lands of their relatives, friends, and neighbors, while some rebuild homes on government properties. This action is explained using the Community Capital Framework (CCF) and Place Attachment or Sense of Place concepts. The CCF asserts that overall resilience in the face of a disaster comes from focusing on the assets in place prior to the exposure to danger across multiple dimensions such as human, social, political, financial, built, natural, and cultural capitals. These capital assets overlap each other. For example, abundant natural capital can easily translate into financial capital, which, in turn, creates a strong set of built capital, if there is political capital to administer resources. The displaced people in the study area tend to remain in the local area because of strong ties to the surrounding communities and abundant natural resources in terms of availability of potential to re-establish river-based livelihoods, access fresh and formalin free fish and vegetables, and breathe pure air. Local people are known to generously provide free land for building homes, and displaced households often receive financial support from local and national governments. All these resources make for strong ties to the locality, and therefore survivors hesitate to move to distant unknown places.