Seasonal Hunger and Beyond

Durham E-Theses Hunger, Place and Seasonality: Understanding Monga Vulnerability in Northwest Bangladesh ANSARI, MOHAMMAD,NAYEEM,AZIZ How to cite: ANSARI, MOHAMMAD,NAYEEM,AZIZ (2013) Hunger, Place and Seasonality: Understanding Monga Vulnerability in Northwest Bangladesh, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9439/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Hunger, Place and Seasonality: Understanding Monga Vulnerability in Northwest Bangladesh __________________________________________________ Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Mohammad Nayeem Aziz Ansari Department of Geography Durham University United Kingdom September, 2013 Declaration and statement of copyright I hereby confirm that the materials presented in this thesis, in full or in parts, have not been submitted by me in any previous application for a degree to any other university or academic institution. In all cases, where it is relevant, material from the work of others has been specifically acknowledged at the appropriate point in the text by references, and quotations and paraphrases suitably indicated. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published in any format without the written consent of the author, and all information derived from it should be acknowledged appropriately. Mohammad Nayeem Aziz Ansari September, 2013 II Abstract __________________________________________________ This research sets out to understand risk and resilience from the perspective of very vulnerable households in Rangpur region of northwest Bangladesh, who are exposed to the Monga. The local term ‘Monga’ is defined as seasonal hunger and food insecurity or most commonly a famine-like situation that hits every year in two spells: the severe period during the Bengali months of Ashwin – Kartik (Mid September – Mid November), and the less severe one from Chaittra – Baishak (Mid March – Mid May). A group of people, particularly female headed households, agriculture wage labourers, marginal and small scale deficit farmers are the most Monga affected due primarily to seasonal unemployment and lack of cash, related with the local single to two rice crop economy that is entirely inadequate to meet their needs in those two periods. The Monga situation is more severe some years because of wide scale impact of natural disasters like floods, riverbank erosion, drought and, the worst situation is to be found on the river (char ) islands. Recent Monga severity suggests that the situation is not markedly different from what it was. Situating this seasonal hunger, the research argues that the interpretation of Monga is not independent of an understanding of the socio-economic, political and their relational interactions that ultimately configure and reconfigure it. The research motivation thus derives from the need to examine Monga vulnerability and so deepen our insights into the seasonal hunger and food insecurity experiences of the affected households. This thesis explores the underlying multiple factors that (re)shapes food vulnerability at the household level and, how the affected households cope with and how their strategies are played out in their own particular risk and resilience contexts. Eventually, it aims to create a new vocabulary around the old problem of the Monga by examining how Monga vulnerability contributes to chronic poverty and food insecurity at the household level and vice-versa. This research is entirely qualitative in nature. Empirical evidence was collected from five villages in the Rangpur region and associated GO-NGO sources using different ethnographic and qualitative methods. The findings highlight that the Monga predisposes the households to multi- sphere experiences of hunger (i.e. qualitative, quantitative and physiological) and poverty. It is not just one consequence of income poverty; rather, the social and livelihood mechanisms of poor households are dysfunctional, multiply rooted in their entitlements, capabilities, their ways of living and coping, and the negotiations they have with the complex network of institutions that affect households both singly and synergistically. The macroeconomic constraints limit the political economy choices at the micro level and the existence of Monga can be explained by the limited, inadequate and indifferent performance of the different actors that reproduce poverty and chronic food insecurity. The present research reveals that breaking the recurrence of Monga requires its repoliticisaiton. Important factors in this regard are the establishment of food rights and an increase in household resilience. III Acknowledgement ___________________________________________________________ Saying thank you and acknowledging the people involved with my research is humbling. I know, simple words cannot express my gratitude you all enough. I would like to begin by thanking my supervisors: Professor Peter J. Atkins and Professor Jonathan Rigg. I owe a great deal of gratitude to them for their guidance and precious advice throughout the completion of my research. They were exceedingly helpful and thought provoking. It has been a privilege to work with them. Here, I extend my sincere gratitude to my principal supervisor Professor Peter J. Atkins for his patient teaching and continuous supervision in shaping both my way of thinking and research. His meticulous care on my drafts, even pointing out when a comma was not enough or when the definite article was missing, will be ever remembered with thanks. His wholehearted support and particular care about my health and my family always helped me not to feel the anxiety of being away from my country. His dedication as a supervisor has been superb, and I am ever grateful to him. I am also indebted to my supervisor Professor Jonathan Rigg for his thoughtful reading, comments, critiques and advice regarding contemporary concepts in the early drafts, have been an outstanding factor in the completion of this thesis. Special thanks also to Dr Cheryl McEwan and Dr Christine E. Dunn for their invaluable ideas that went through at my progression paper. I thank all the supporting staff of the Geography department, Durham University. Many thanks to Veronica Crook for her administrative support. Special thanks to Mr. Brett Cherry who played a special role to focus my research by publishing a short article in the IHRR bulletin. I gratefully acknowledge the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) for awarding me the Commonwealth Academic Scholarship, UK to pursue this research. I am also grateful to the Geography Department, Durham University for providing me some grant which made my fieldwork successful. My heart-felt gratitude to all those people in my study areas for being involved with my research, welcomed me in their locality and sharing everything about their livelihoods and sufferings to build my data. The cordial thanks to my field research assistants Faiz, Shahed, Maleka and Runi who supported me in many ways under difficult circumstances and a demanding tight schedule. I would like to thank many personnel from different GO-NGO and other relevant organizations, especially, RDRS, USS, GUK, CARE, PKSF, Freedom Foundation, Akota, Community Dhan Banks, and IRRI. Special thanks to Professor Dara Shamsuddin, Professor Md. Shamsul Alam, Professor M Nazrul Islam and Assistant Professor Tarikul Haq, JU who extended their cooperation by providing information and played special role for my field work in northwest Bangladesh. I am very grateful to all my colleagues of the department of Geography and Environment, Jahangriangar University for their very encouraging support. Special thanks go to Professor Sajed Ashraf Karim, Professor Manzurul Hassan, Professor Md. Shahedur Rashid, Professor K M Shariful Huda, Ubaydur Rahman Siddiki and Ummeh Saika. I am also grateful to Professor Mesbah-us-Saleheen, Professor K. M. Elahi, Professor A k Azizul Hoq Bhuiya for their kind affection toward me. My special gratitude to Professor Abdul Bayes, ex vice chancellor of JU, and Professor Afser Ahmed, Pro-vice chancellor of JU (Admin.) for their every encouraging words and support in my teaching and research life. I thank to my mum, brother, sisters, family members, relatives and friends in Bangladesh who inspired me over the years to stay focused and keep blessing and wishing from there. I also missed every moment of my late father, late father-in-law and late mother-in-law, who were the key visionaries to make me a teacher and researcher. I know their blessing from heaven is always with me. My life in Durham would have been less inspiring without my friends and my neighbours to colour it. Thank you all. Last but not the least, special thanks to my wife Tulip and dearly loved daughter Kinnori for their unwavering

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