Climate change-induced displacement, gender, and mobile telephony in West Bengal, India

Abstract

This chapter explores the role of mobile phones amidst the social rupture and displacement caused by an extreme weather event in the Sundarbans region on the eastern coast of India. As a low-lying area, this region is highly vulnerable to climate change, including rising seawater and an increase in storms. In the aftermath of cyclone Aila, kinship ties and gender roles proved fluid – families dispersed into small urban and rural units to avail themselves of urban job opportunities and rural benefits. Women have increasingly become breadwinners, migrating to work in the urban areas, even on their own. The chapter focuses on the role of mobile phones for women’s agency and the negotiation of new types of gender and kinship relationships by examining the survival strategies, co-presence, and leisure practices enabled by mobile phones. It draws from the two strands of studies on the role of digital media, one on gender and agency and another one on translocal relationships, to demonstrate that the co-presence enabled by phones is not only about creating intimate relationships across distance but also about women being able to carve new economic roles and reconstruct family relationships.