Selection of three field sites from India and Bangladesh enables a comparative perspective between state policies and localities faced with different kind of natural phenomenon (floods, cyclones and the rise of seawater level).

Mohammad Jasim Uddin explores people’s displacement due to the rising seawater in the Bangladeshi side of Sunderbons. He will study how the inhabitants, whose native places have been engulfed by the rising sea and river water level, pursue new livelihoods in an urban slum in Sylhet (a metropolitan city in northeastern Bangladesh). Migrants ́ struggle for new livelihoods includes their adaptive capacities, gaining and retaining access to resources and opportunities, dealing with stress and shocks, negotiating social relationships within the households, and managing social networks within and across communities and the city. Uddin also examines migrants’ claim making as everyday forms of agency and as part of political networks.