ABSTRACT
Sri Lanka must grow economically and preserve its natural resource base as a lower-middle-income country. Climate change threatens both economic development and the well-being of residents. Since 2015, heavy rains, flash floods, and landslides have displaced thousands of residents across the island. The Government of Sri Lanka tends to use “after the fact” relocation measures to reduce future risk to lives and livelihoods rather than proactive forms of a planned relocation. Relocation has a long history in Sri Lanka. In this chapter, I create three disaster-related case studies that highlight recent uses of relocation and the vulnerability of the island’s population to climate change effects. I situate these cases in the country’s ethnic and political relations to highlight tensions between the central government and communities in various peripheries (socio-economic, ethnic, and geographical). Doing this in combination with analyzing the actions of state institutions such as the Ministry of National Security and Disaster Management, the Disaster Management Center, and the Urban Development Authority, I highlight the socio-political dynamics of relocation, starting with the relocation of coastal communities following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami through recent flooding and landslides events. The ways in which the state and affected communities negotiate, challenge, and propose relocation as a disaster-mitigation measure illuminates the socio-politics of relocation, how the state uses relocation as a tool of governance, and how and the extent to which the justification for using and modalities of relocation transforms across time.
