United Nations University Institute of Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS)
Erscheinungsjahr:
2014
Medientyp:
Text
Schlagworte:
Humanitarian assistance
Cyclone Sidr
marginality
patron-client relationship
participation
Beschreibung:
‘Nature does not discriminate, but humans do’ – a deliberately echoed sentiment in an area affected by Cyclone Sidr - problematizes the practice of resource distribution in post-disaster situations. While relief and rehabilitation services have the objective of ‘building back better’, the possibility of elite-capture of resource distribution channels, jeopardizes humanitarian initiatives. This paper explores the political economy of post-Sidr interventions from an ethnographic account. The paper establishes links between power networks and access to resources in the study area, finding that marginality is a production of ongoing disaster interventions which favour the relatively well-off over the structurally poor. Ultimately, humanitarian assistance channels resources through established power networks, thus reinforcing them and producing uneven resilience among different social strata. This paper offers important insights for redesigning the distribution of humanitarian assistance.