Gender dimensions of development interventions and human security for indigenous people in Chittagong hill tracts

Abstract

Human insecurities in Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh in terms of land dispossession, forced migration, environmental degradation, and loss of ownership of natural resources, socioeconomic backwardness and ethnic conflict are still major concern of the policy makers, human rights workers, donor agencies and other stakeholders. As a result, various development measures have been undertaken for the well-being and improvement of socioeconomic conditions of the indigenous people. In such a situation, the present study has been carried out aimed at identifying the nature of human security and insecurity of the indigenous people, exploring the gender dimension of development interventions and analyzing the impacts development interventions on lives and livelihoods of the indigenous people living in CHT. The study is qualitative in nature and purposive sampling procedure was followed to select the study area and sample as well. The site of empirical investigation of the present study was Rangamati hill district of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. At first, four villages from the four upazilas (sub-districts) of Rangamati hill district and two paras from Municipal area of Rangamati were purposively selected as the study area. Secondly, 36 adult indigenous people, 18 from the Marma (nine male and nine female) and 18 from the Tripura (nine male and nine female) community, were selected as respondents for the study using purposive sampling procedure. It helped the researcher to select the appropriate samples who were able to provide relevant information. However, the study is based on primary data gathered by the researcher herself mainly through semi-structured interview and focus group discussions. Eight case studies were also conducted to get deeper insights into the research issues. Non-participant observation helped the researcher to capture the socio-cultural diversities, gender dimension, and nature of insecurities and impact of development interventions on indigenous people. In addition, data were collected from the key informants who were reservoir of knowledge about CHT. Data were collected from secondary sources that include legal documents, official reports, earlier studies, books, journals etc. The study employed the analytical framework of human security and intersectionality as theoretical underpinnings to analyze the findings.