Displaced by Development

Displaced by Development: Confronting Marginalisation and Gender Injustice applies gender analysis to development induced displacement and resettlement in the Indian context. It highlights the need to focus specifically on how processes of displacement and resettlement affect social groups differently with regard to axes such as gender, class, caste and tribe. It argues that without differentiated analyses and programmes, the processes of resettlement and displacement will continue to be executed in ways that serve to intensify and perpetuate gender and social injustice. The book also critiques and draws attention to the injustices perpetrated in the course of development-induced-displacement and resettlement, which persist as burning issues in 21st century India, where economic and industrial development are growing rapidly.

The authors argue that without radically re-imagining the practices of development that cause displacement, there will be no end to the contentious politics accompanying displacement processes and the marginalisation and impoverishment of vulnerable social groups (e.g. adivasis, the urban and rural poor and lower castes). This means putting the interests of the displaced upfront, instead of seeing them as non-citizens or 'dispensable citizens' stripped of their basic rights.