Fragility and Peace in Climate-Affected Borderlands

Tasnia Prova, University of Toronto (Bangladesh/Canada)

In the last two decades, the body of research exploring linkages between climate change, peace and security has grown, however, climate-affected borderlands without active warfare and spectacular conflict have received little attention. As the global threat of climate change disrupts communities and ecosystems, borderlands can become more susceptible to complex violence. While climate adversities risk exacerbating muti-scalar fragility in peripheral geographies, a shared source of vulnerability can redefine the paradigms of peace-building between neighbouring states and redirect attention to locally-led solutions. Using Bangladesh’s south-western borderland as a case-study, this paper explores how borderland communities negotiate local level tensions, political violence, and the ebbs and flows of the bilateral relationship between countries, whilst experiencing and resisting the worsening impacts of climate change. Findings are derived from a two-year long study that employed an iteration of community-based participatory methods for a contextualized understanding of how governance and climate action shape local peace.