ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to examine diverse discourses and practices around climate change and uncertainty in the Sundarbans – a coastal delta and major climate hotspot located at the southern end of the state of West Bengal in India and Bangladesh. In both colonial and post-colonial times, the delta has always been marginalised in socio-political terms. This marginalisation together with climate-related uncertainties has exacerbated livelihood insecurities and the vulnerabilities of local men, women and children. We explore how the changing scenario of the Sundarbans creates differential experiences of uncertainties and responses for different actors. Based on case studies from two islands in the Sundarbans, the chapter argues that the islanders are forced to engage in distress diversification such as out-migration to sustain themselves in the context of livelihood uncertainties, with differential gendered impacts. The chapter also focuses on the politics of the embankments and policymaking which hinders locally appropriate adaptation. Thus we argue for the need for radical–critical adaptation strategies in the fragile socio-ecological system of the Sundarbans in order to enable transformative change with a focus on equity as well as social, gender and ecological justice.
