Social Capital and Post-Disaster Response and Recovery: Cyclone Aila in Bangladesh, 2009 Sebak Kumar Saha July 2020 A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University © Copyright by Sebak Kumar Saha 2020 All Rights Reserved Declaration This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. To the best of the author’s knowledge, it contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text. Sebak Kumar Saha July 2020 iii Dedication To My Father and Mother v Acknowledgements This study would have not been possible without the encouragement and significant support I have received from many people. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisory panel. I am especially indebted to my primary supervisor and chair of the supervisory panel Professor Helen James who passed away on 30 April 2020. She provided me with excellent guidance, invaluable comments on draft chapters and intellectual inspiration throughout my PhD journey at the Australian National University until her death. She also provided me emotional support and confidence in dealing with research-related issues. She was a great person. She was and will always be an inspiration to me. I am also indebted to Associate Professor Christopher Ballard (current primary supervisor and chair of the supervisory panel) and Professor James Pittock (supervisor) for their excellent guidance, insightful comments on draft chapters and encouragement. I am grateful to both for providing me the much-needed advice and emotional support in a situation when my primary supervisor was unable to guide me due to her health issues and the ANU moved from on-campus to remote work and study due to the COVID-19 crisis, which severely disrupted normal study life. I am grateful to my parents who have made a lot of sacrifices in educating me and have always inspired and supported me to achieve higher academic qualifications. I am indebted to my wife Akhi Saha, my daughter Songhoti Saha and my son Souhardya Saha for their love and all the support they have provided me during this study. I am also indebted to my wife’s parents and her maternal uncle Mr Bholanath Saha, my siblings and all my close relatives for their support and encouragement. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my wonderful research assistants: Sk Azmir Hossain, Md Inzamul Haque, Ashraf Ahamed, Md Jubayer Mahmud, Rabiul Islam Robi, Rhidoy Ahmed, Shafiqul Islam Mir, Tasnim Ahmed Chowdhury, Md Ahadur Rahman and Tanvir Ahammed for their assistance during qualitative and survey data collection, data input and preparing maps and graphs. I appreciate Md Inzamul Haque for his assistance in preparing the maps and Ashraf Ahamed for his assistance during the survey and survey data input. I would also like to express my gratitude to Md Nuruzzaman, Md Asadul Islam, Shukantha Sarkar and Kamal Roy for their help during the survey. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the research participants and survey respondents for providing vii useful data. I also want to extend my sincere thanks to Mrs Dipannita Gayen, Mr Mukunda Roy, Mr Sushanta Roy, Mr Kamrul Sardar and his wife Mrs Laili Begum, Mr Masud Sarkar, Mr Tapan Karmakar and Mr Abdul Gafur from the two studied villages for all sorts of support during my fieldwork. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr Sumonkanti Das, Mr Al Amin Rabby and Dr Atiqul Islam Raja for their support, particularly for their assistance to recruit research assistants including survey data collectors. I would like to thank Dr Tran Anh Thong who completed his PhD from ANU and my fellow PhD colleagues including Luke Corbin at the School of Culture, History and Language (CHL), ANU, for their friendship and support during my study. I would like to thank Dr Janelle Stevenson, CHL, and the academics and administrative staff at CHL for their cordial support during the study. I would also like to extend my thanks to John Mahony for proofreading most of my thesis and Mrs Candida Spence for her assistance in formatting my thesis. I am also thankful to Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST), Sylhet, for granting me study leave to pursue the doctoral degree. I am also grateful to Professor Md Abdul Ghani and Professor Tulshi Kumar Das for providing me recommendation letters for my admission at ANU and Endeavour Postgraduate Scholarship application and all my school, college, and university teachers for their contribution to my life. I would like to thank the Department of Education and Training, Australian Government, for awarding me an Endeavour Postgraduate Scholarship (PhD) to undertake my doctoral study at the Australian National University, Australia. I also express my gratitude to all the case managers and program manager Monika Marzec of Scope Global Pty Ltd for their tremendous support during the scholarship tenure. Finally, I would also like to thank ANU for offering me a Postgraduate Research Scholarship for a short period of time to complete my doctoral study. viii Abstract This thesis explores the role of social capital at household level in the response and recovery process following Cyclone Aila in Bangladesh in 2009. The study focuses on the role of three forms of social capital – bonding, bridging and linking – in the response and in the economic, housing and psychological recovery processes of affected households. Social capital is conceptualised here as the resources available to households through social networks. Bonding social capital refers to the resources available through bonding networks (relatives); bridging social capital identifies resources available through bridging networks (neighbours, friends and acquaintances); and linking social capital covers resources available through linking networks (government and NGOs). The study is based on fieldwork in two Cyclone Aila–affected villages of Khulna District in Bangladesh. Employing a mixed methods approach, this study shows that bonding and bridging social capital play significant roles in evacuation and search and rescue activities. Though they both contribute to survival for only a very limited period, bonding social capital contributes to a greater proportion of households than bridging social capital. However, both forms of social capital play only a limited role in the longer-term economic and housing recovery process, though they do greatly contribute to the psychological recovery process of the members of the affected households. Bonding social capital also plays a more important role than bridging social capital in the response and recovery process. Crucially, bonding networks with relatives do not weaken over time, while bridging networks with neighbours, friends and acquaintances within the village tend to become less active and often break down over time. Affected households were unable to initiate recovery activities for a long period as their villages were subject to prolonged flooding due to breaches in the river embankment. Most households were unable to survive during this prolonged flooding period, either independently or with the material and monetary aid they received from their bonding and bridging networks. Instead, they were strongly dependent for their survival and recovery on resources accessed through linking networks with the government and NGOs. Although poverty and shared experience of the same disaster limit the capacity of bonding and bridging networks, this study argues that bonding and bridging networks cannot generally contribute to survival over longer periods or to substantial economic and housing recovery due to poverty, even in situations where relatives, neighbours, friends and acquaintances are ix not directly affected themselves. The relative wealth embedded in these networks is thus the critical factor in understanding their role in disaster response and recovery. The study concludes that households affected by cyclones in coastal areas of Bangladesh will generally require external assistance through linking social networks for their survival and economic and housing recovery. The study shows that the effectiveness of the post-Aila response and recovery operations of the government and NGOs was undermined by a number of serious weaknesses. The findings on the weaknesses of post-Aila response and recovery operations will be helpful for policymakers and development practitioners in designing more effective post-disaster response and recovery operations in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the future. Finally, the study recommends policies that will enhance the resilience of coastal households to cyclone hazards as well as help them to adapt to the adverse impacts of sea level rise in the short- and medium-term. The study also recommends the development of plans for resettling displaced populations in other places in the long-term, as sea level rise may force a large number of coastal households in Bangladesh to relocate elsewhere. Keywords: Social capital, Disaster response, Disaster recovery, Cyclone Aila, Government, NGOs, Coastal area of Bangladesh x Table of Contents Declaration ................................................................................................................................ iii Dedication .................................................................................................................................. v Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................