MAPPING CONFLICT IN CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS 1997-2014


Book Description

The ‘issue’ of the Chittagong Hill Tracts is as divisive as the region itself. At one end there are tales of woe: how the original inhabitants of the region are being evicted from their land through violence and trickery, their marginalization, and elimination of their traditional way of life simultaneously while it is being exoticized for tourism. These accounts, however, paint a static picture where the members of these ethnic groups are victims, always and without any agency. Consequently these accounts fail to hold up in front of close examination and invites counter-opinion rage: that the Bengali and other ethnicities of CHT are prevented from living in harmony by disruptive elements within the society, that the oppression and repression of the hill peoples are made-up stories that feed national and international conspiracies. In ‘Conflict Mapping in the Chittagong Hill Tracts,’ researchers from the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Dhaka cut through this fog of confusion by presenting dispassionate, unornamented data. With the help of original data and systematic analysis, they show how the social life of CHT is marked by deep polarization, both within and across the ethnic divide, how it is beset by real and perceived accounts of discrimination and by lack of confidence on state agencies and the rule of law. They also investigate the trajectory of major cases of violence in the region in the past two decades and reveal that these have a common escalation pattern with various points marked by missed opportunities for prevention. Based on a study that draws from a large survey of a cross section of people from 8 of the most crime-prone Upazilas of the region, semi-structured interview of selected elites and analysis of the dynamics of 14 incidents of large-scale violence between 1997 and 2014, this book aims at initiating a healthy, constructive conversation on the issue. It challenges long-held prejudices, common-sense beliefs and unsubstantiated propaganda. By offering the lens of social science, the book invites readers with well-meaning but vague opinions as well as consumers of zealous and spoon-fed ideas to form informed and nuanced opinion.







Myanmar's Mountain and Maritime Borderscapes


Book Description

This edited volume adds to the literature on Myanmar and its borders by drawing attention to the significance of geography, history, politics and society in the construction of the border regions and the country. First, it alerts us to the fact that the border regions are situated in the mountainous and maritime domains of the country, highlighting the commonalities that arise from shared geography. Second, the book foregrounds socio-spatio practices "e;economic, intimate, spiritual, virtual"e; of border and boundary-making in their local context. This demonstrates how state-defined notions of territory, borders and identity are enacted or challenged. Third, despite sharing common features, Myanmar's borderscapes also possess unique configurations of ethnic, political and economic attributes, producing social formations and figured worlds that are more cohesive or militant in some border areas than in others. Understanding and comparing these social practices and their corresponding life-worlds allows us to re-examine the connections from the borderlands back to the hinterland and to consider the value of border and boundary studies in problematizing and conceptualizing recent changes in Myanmar.







Land Solutions for Climate Displacement


Book Description

The threat of climate displacement looms large over a growing number of countries. Based on the more than six years of work by Displacement Solutions in ten climate-affected countries, academic work on displacement and climate adaptation, and the country-level efforts of civil society groups in several frontline countries, this report explores the key contention that land will be at the core of any major strategy aimed at preventing and resolving climate displacement. This innovative and timely volume coordinated and edited by the Founder of Displacement Solutions, Scott Leckie, examines a range of legal, policy and practical issues relating to the role of land in actively addressing the displacement consequences of climate change. It reveals the inevitable truth that climate displacement is already underway and being tackled in countries such as Bangladesh, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and the United States, and proposes a series of possible land solution tools that can be employed to protect the rights of people and communities everywhere should they be forced to flee the places they call home.




Cascades of Violence


Book Description

As in the cascading of water, violence and nonviolence can cascade down from commanding heights of power (as in waterfalls), up from powerless peripheries, and can undulate to spread horizontally (flowing from one space to another). As with containing water, conflict cannot be contained without asking crucial questions about which variables might cause it to cascade from the top-down, bottom up and from the middle-out. The book shows how violence cascades from state to state. Empirical research has shown that nations with a neighbor at war are more likely to have a civil war themselves (Sambanis 2001). More importantly in the analysis of this book, war cascades from hot spot to hot spot within and between states (Autesserre 2010, 2014). The key to understanding cascades of hot spots is in the interaction between local and macro cleavages and alliances (Kalyvas 2006). The analysis exposes the folly of asking single-level policy questions like do the benefits and costs of a regime change in Iraq justify an invasion? We must also ask what other violence might cascade from an invasion of Iraq? The cascades concept is widespread in the physical and biological sciences with cascades in geology, particle physics and the globalization of contagion. The past two decades has seen prominent and powerful applications of the cascades idea to the social sciences (Sunstein 1997; Gladwell 2000; Sikkink 2011). In his discussion of ethnic violence, James Rosenau (1990) stressed that the image of turbulence developed by mathematicians and physicists could provide an important basis for understanding the idea of bifurcation and related ideas of complexity, chaos, and turbulence in complex systems. He classified the bifurcated systems in contemporary world politics as the multicentric system and the statecentric system. Each of these affects the others in multiple ways, at multiple levels, and in ways that make events enormously hard to predict (Rosenau 1990, 2006). He replaced the idea of events with cascades to describe the event structures that 'gather momentum, stall, reverse course, and resume anew as their repercussions spread among whole systems and subsystems' (1990: 299). Through a detailed analysis of case studies in South Asia, that built on John Braithwaite's twenty-five year project Peacebuilding Compared, and coding of conflicts in different parts of the globe, we expand Rosenau's concept of global turbulence and images of cascades. In the cascades of violence in South Asia, we demonstrate how micro-events such as localized riots, land-grabbing, pervasive militarization and attempts to assassinate political leaders are linked to large scale macro-events of global politics. We argue in order to prevent future conflicts there is a need to understand the relationships between history, structures and agency; interest, values and politics; global and local factors and alliances.







Amnesties, Accountability, and Human Rights


Book Description

For the last thirty years, documented human rights violations have been met with an unprecedented rise in demands for accountability. This trend challenges the use of amnesties which typically foreclose opportunities for criminal prosecutions that some argue are crucial to transitional justice. Recent developments have seen amnesties circumvented, overturned, and resisted by lawyers, states, and judiciaries committed to ending impunity for human rights violations. Yet, despite this global movement, the use of amnesties since the 1970s has not declined. Amnesties, Accountability, and Human Rights examines why and how amnesties persist in the face of mounting pressure to prosecute the perpetrators of human rights violations. Drawing on more than 700 amnesties instituted between 1970 and 2005, Renée Jeffery maps out significant trends in the use of amnesty and offers a historical account of how both the use and the perception of amnesty has changed. As mechanisms to facilitate transitions to democracy, to reconcile divided societies, or to end violent conflicts, amnesties have been adapted to suit the competing demands of contemporary postconflict politics and international accountability norms. Through the history of one evolving political instrument, Amnesties, Accountability, and Human Rights sheds light on the changing thought, practice, and goals of human rights discourse generally.







Science-based conservation of tigers: Assessing the past to prepare for the future


Book Description

In this Research Topic, we plan to assess the interface of conservation and science, looking at the various aspects of tiger conservation by assessing what advances have been made in each relevant field, where are the limitations, and what does the data show us about successes and failures in conserving tigers, their prey and their habitat. Through a series of multiple-authored papers, we plan to explore the realms of tiger and prey monitoring, law enforcement, habitat restoration efforts, human-tiger conflicts, landscape connectivity and ultimately how tiger conservation strategies have evolved and emerged leading up to the present. Coming at this critical time – with 2022 being the Year of the Tiger and the end of a 12-year pledge by Tiger Range Countries to double tiger numbers - this Research Topic will provide a landmark publication reflecting back on the past 12 (and more) years of tiger conservation and research, and laying the foundation for the coming twelve years. While the focus is on tigers, the studies will have wide application to efforts to conserve other large-bodied carnivores. In 2010, the lunar year of the tiger, a “Tiger Summit” was held in the Russian city of St. Petersburg, where 13 Tiger Range Countries pledged to double tiger numbers by the next lunar year of the tiger in 2022. The science of tiger conservation has developed in multiple ways over the past twelve years. As we approach this benchmark, when tiger range countries will be reporting on their past efforts and planning for the next twelve years, it is important to assess what has been accomplished, and what yet needs to be done; where there have been successes, and what has not worked. This is why it is particularly important to employ a science-based approach to conservation, something that is not universally adopted by tiger conservation advocates, but which we, as editors of this collection consider central to successful tiger conservation. This Research Topic will lay the foundation for effective science-based conservation of tigers for the next twelve years. In 2021 a collection of representatives from the international tiger conservation community developed a “joint NGO vision” of priorities in tiger conservation for the coming twelve years. In this Research Topic we plan to focus on the critical issues for global tiger conservation as identified by this international group. This topic will discuss these issues and highlight how they have been addressed in diverse tiger landscapes, including both successes and failures. Our goal is to provide a foundation and structure for site-based tiger conservation actions within, and beyond, the next 12-year lunar cycle. This Research Topic was conceptualized and launched by Dale Miquelle, Thomas Gray, Luke Hunter, Abishek Harihar, John Goodrich and Matthew Linkie, in collaboration with Frontiers, to focus on: • The Convergence of Site-based tiger conservation strategies • Opportunities for restoration of tigers across their historical range • Recovery of tigers in Thailand’s tiger conservation landscapes (what works). • An integrated law enforcement approach for protecting tigers and their prey in Sumatra. • Cost of ranger protection for tiger protected area. • Evaluating a site-based enforcement strategy, Malaysia. • Beyond density: better indicators for tiger monitoring. • Prey Recovery is the foundation of tiger restoration. • Resolving human-tiger conflicts. • Community-based tiger conservation: Can it work? • Ensuring connectivity of tiger conservation landscapes. • Emerging infectious disease threats. • Tiger conservation and global/regional initiatives.