Climate change effects cause major socioeconomic challenges for marginalized groups, particularly women, in Bangladesh. Specifically, drought increases resource scarcity, causing social problems that impact women, which can be described as the gendered sociocultural construction of vulnerabilities. Given this constructed dimension of gender-based vulnerability, this paper explores the effects of drought on marginalized women in one local case study, namely Badlagaree village in Gaibandha district, Bangladesh. To examine this linkage, we collected qualitative primary data using ethnographic research methods, primarily focus group discussions. Findings show that gender-based vulnerability is increasing due to growing drought effects, including agricultural production loss. Marginalized women, because of their gender identity, encounter these drought effects through unemployment, food insecurity, illiteracy, early marriage, dowry costs and violence. While further national-scale research is required, this paper argues that in order to overcome such gender-based vulnerability, current development policies, social programs, and adaptation strategies should better recognize such social dynamics. Further, a gender-specific understanding requires incorporation into adaptation policies through greater collaborative governance as an important prerequisite for sustainability.

Coastal people, especially those living within deltaic areas, encounter major climatic concerns which affect their livelihoods. To cope with this problem, different types of planned adaptation strategies have been implemented guided by laws, policies and programs. However, these guiding documents sometimes fall short of addressing the needs of climate-affected people, especially in natural resource-dependent societies in Asia and Africa. Based on this premise, this paper sought to evaluate the effectiveness of existing policy documents which affect the lives of people living in one large delta (Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna in Bangladesh), two medium-sized deltas (Indian Bengal delta—part of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna and Mahanadi in India), and a small-sized delta (Volta in Ghana). The study followed a mixed methods research design, which included desktop analyses of policies, laws and programs, a questionnaire survey conducted among individuals who played various roles in the policy and legal development processes at national and local levels and focus group discussions at the community level in the three countries. National laws, policies and programs were assessed in the context of climate change adaptation through three lenses: human rights, natural resource management and disaster response. Findings of this paper reveal that the existing documents have some strengths to promote adaptation, although they have some major limitations that cause concerns among the delta communities.

Women are recognized as proactive catalysts for societal change in rural Bangladesh because of their significant socio-economic contributions to agricultural practices. Historically, they have been closely associated with various agricultural activities ranging from seed preservation to crop harvesting. Despite their vital role in the rural economy, women farmers have encountered a number of obstacles resulting from the adaptation of neoliberal agrarian policies. In recent decades, women’s participation in the agricultural sector has declined, which can be attributed to the influence of capitalist patriarchy on agricultural practices. Grounded on this argument, this present study aims to investigate a research question: What are the major challenges to women’s participation in agricultural practices in Bangladesh? In order to answer this question, data has been collected through in-depth interviews and household surveys from three villages of Jaldhaka Upazila in the Nilphamari district of northwestern Bangladesh. The findings of this paper argue that women’s participation in agriculture is challenged by the effects of the neoliberal policy perspective, such as the mechanization of agriculture, commercial land use, and land inequality, which continue to ratify patriarchy in agriculture. In such a situation, this study suggests women’s empowerment could be effectively facilitated by adopting agricultural policies that are specifically tailored to address gender dynamics, emphasizing the active engagement and meaningful representation of women in the processes of policy formulation and execution.

Climate change has garnered widespread societal concern due to its yawning consequences on both the natural environment and human society. Consequently, the imperative for adaptation to climate change has become intensely entrenched in the collective psyche of humanity. Traditionally, women have played an indispensable role in climate adaptation processes, yet their invaluable contributions remain unfortunately disregarded and underrepresented. While contemporary financial assistance promotes women’s engagement in climate change adaptation, the coping strategies in real situations are widely varied and are significantly important to discuss. This study endeavors to rectify this gap by identifying and revealing the adaptive strategies of women in response to the vulnerabilities engendered by the multidimensional impacts of climate change. Thus, this study was conducted deploying a mixed research methodology combined with qualitative and quantitative approaches, particularly focus group discussions (FGD), household surveys, and key informant interviews (KII) across three villages in the Nilphamari district of Northwestern Bangladesh. The findings of this study reveal that women have made substantial contributions to adapting to the impacts of climate change through the execution of distinctive saving mechanisms. In facing adversities resulting from climate-induced losses, women exhibit a commendable capacity for adaptation by leveraging their accrued financial reserves as a robust and astute coping mechanism. This study suggests a broader replication of this approach to confront the impacts of climate change.

Climate change has become a major global concern, and it has severe consequences for all communities. Coastal areas of Bangladesh are vulnerable to climate change because of their geophysical condition and geographical position. Although climate change affects people’s sustainable livelihood strategies in coastal regions of Bangladesh, it has gained limited attention in academic discourse. This study, hence, aimed to investigate the impact of climate change on the sustainable livelihood strategies of coastal people. Utilizing an explanatory sequential mixed research approach, including stakeholders’ consultations, household surveys, in-depth interviews (IDIs), focus group discussions (FGDs), and key informant interviews (KIIs), the study was carried out in Char Kukrumukri union in Bhola District, one of the climate-vulnerable areas of the country. Our study findings revealed that climate change primarily affects natural and physical capital, which in turn impacts financial, human, social, and political capital, and in the end, creates different forms of vulnerabilities. The study also explored a significant association between increasing waterlogging areas and reducing arable lands ($X^2$ = 38.02; p < 0.001), and the reduction in fresh water sources and damages in agricultural production ($X^2$ = 80; p < 0.001). The study further highlighted that the government efforts, such as polderization, aimed at preventing salinity in coastal areas, have failed due to the lack of integration with the representation of local people. The lack of integration between the local community’s voices and government actions poses additional challenges to maintaining people’s sustainable livelihood strategies. Thus, the study suggests a successful integration of localized practices and government interventions to address the climate-induced livelihood challenges to coastal people.

Sociology is one of the major disciplines to foster understanding and protection of the livelihoods of local people. For instance, the discipline can describe the linkage between the environment and people and the effects of environmental change on local groups of people in a Delta country such as Bangladesh. However, the imperial philosophy of modernity that dominates the discipline and which is evident in the Sociology department at the University of Dhaka (UofD) underscores a considerable distance between academic conceptualizations of local perspectives on issues such as climatic change and the actual views of the local people of Bangladesh. Grounded on this assertion, this paper explores a question: What are the challenges for Sociology to represent Delta people and protect their social justice? The paper depends on the content analysis of sociological practices at UofD: imperial modernity and climatic adaptation. The findings of the paper argue that Sociology has been failing to represent the local meanings of climatic change due to the domination of imperial conceptualizations of modernity. Climate finance conceptualized by a Western perspective, and Sociology, as a discipline, fails to represent locally contextualized meanings related to climate finance; thus, the marginalized groups of people are increasingly facing survival challenges responsible for climate apartheid. Only a decolonized Sociology can challenge this imperial domination and play an effective role in reducing the discipline’s gap of understanding of the local people and in promoting social justice in Delta Bangladesh.