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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250929T102034Z
DTSTART:20251110T150000Z
DTEND:20251110T170000Z
SUMMARY:Megnaa Mehtta (University College London). Retreat or Remain? Not
 ions of a full life and a slow death from Sundarbans’ eroding coastlines
 
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DESCRIPTION:As sea level rise erode coastlines of the Sundarbans\, “manag
 ed retreat”—a process of relocating people to supposedly safer areas—is 
 put forth by policymakers globally\, and in India\, as an adaptation sol
 ution. Through long-term ethnographic research with residents of Sundarb
 ans’ coastal communities\, this paper examines their desires to remain i
 n their villages despite recurrent experiences of floods\, cyclones and 
 land erosion. The motivations to remain are because many know the altern
 ative—enmeshing themselves within India’s precarious and risky informal 
 economy—to be worse\, akin to what some call a slow death\, even as coas
 tlines classified as uninhabitable by policymakers\, counterintuitively\
 , offer a safer and fuller existence. Further\, this paper disaggregates
  what it means to remain and capacities (or incapacities) of aspiring fo
 r relocation\, in relation to residents’ land ownership\, livelihoods\, 
 gender\, disability\, and age. I examine the dense relational webs of ki
 nships\, sociality\, ritual and non-human life that make a space into a 
 shongshar (household/home/world).\n\nMegnaa Mehtta is a Lecturer in Soci
 al Anthropology at the Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction\, Unive
 rsity College London (UCL). She is currently working on a book manuscrip
 t titled Conserving Life: Political Imaginaries from a Submerging Forest
  based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the mangrove forests of th
 e Sundarbans. Her writings have appeared in journals such as Current Ant
 hropology\, the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute\, and Com
 parative Studies in South Asia\, Africa and the Middle East. Her next ph
 ase of research\, funded by an AXA-UNESCO research fellowship\, is inter
 ested in migration\, informality\, health\, and social reproduction as t
 hese themes intersect with climate adaptation policies\, land dispossess
 ion and long-standing vulnerabilities. This research is multi-sited and 
 follows a rural to urban continuum of migrant labour from the coastlines
  of Bengal to a range of worksites\, including factory shop floors and c
 onstruction sites across India\, Bangladesh\, and Italy.\n\n
STATUS:TENTATIVE
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
CLASS:PUBLIC
LOCATION:Boardroom (2.016-17)\, Arthur Lewis Building\, Manchester
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