Encounters and Efforts in Adversity: Gendered Experiences of Im/Mobility in Sundarbans Delta, India

Sundarbans, an actively retrograding and prograding delta, is a region marked by extreme poverty, underdevelopment, and ecological degradation manifested by both anthropogenic changes and compounded in the current times by climate change and disasters. In the coastal margins of the Indian Part of the delta, a complex mobility grid operates. This paper uses a qualitative methodology to explore the gendered lived experiences of im/mobility. It draws from the theoretical framework of feminist political ecology to comprehend the physical and emotional labour involved in living in a climate hotspot and dealing with mobility and immobility. Using the concepts of "koshto" (suffering/hardship) and "cheshta" (struggle/endeavour) and the dynamic interplay between them, the paper reveals that everyday suffering and hardship (koshto) are the backdrops against which the women's hard work, struggle and endeavour (cheshta) are forged. The embodied experiences highlight how women's bodies perform arduous labour to survive and nurture life in a degrading environment. Being more mobile, men venture to distant places to earn wages; in their absence, women's workload increases due to care and labour responsibilities, mainly when growing crops, fruits, and vegetables is no longer feasible. However, this dynamic shifts in families where men are not available/cannot/or do not want to earn a living. In such cases, young, able-bodied women move out to work as domestic workers or caregivers. Families where neither men nor women can migrate out to work are worse off; in the absence of the men’s ability to work, women provide both caregiving and full-day labour to support their household in degrading environments. By examining everyday relationships, this paper reveals the invisible yet complex ways that micro-scaled geopolitics of forced mobility and immobility are entangled with daily life, coping practices and gender relations and how these dynamics intersect with the embodied experiences of women are delved upon.