Fragile environment, fractured citizenship: Environmental displacement and the erosion of citizenship

Abstract

The conditions of a fragile and unsustainable ecology have added to the complexities of the much-contested notion of ‘citizenship’. Ecological peril, both in the form of extreme weather events and slow-onset impacts of environmental degradation, has serious repercussions for the already prevailing conundrum that the conception of citizenship entails. Proliferation of ‘natural’ disasters and acceleration of environmental degeneration in recent times have caused large-scale involuntary displacement and consequently a rupture in the sense of ‘belonging’, which is the cornerstone of citizenship. Thus, it is imperative that the notion of ‘citizenship’ is reconceptualised in the light of the lived reality of environmental displacement that produces new forms of precarity while disrupting the sense of being-a-citizen. Displacement caused by a fragile and volatile ecology paves the path for a gradual waning of citizenship rights, often leading to loss of avenues for meaningful citizen engagement, thereby making environmental displacement an exemplary case for understanding how ‘citizenship’ operates as a place-based relation. This article will discuss the precarious conditions of environmentally displaced people and delineate the intractable chasm between the ideas of ‘administered’ citizenship and ‘lived’ citizenship. I argue that drawing on ‘processual’ aspects of citizenship becomes imperative against the backdrop of the rapid degradation of ecosystems which calls for a reworking of the ‘political’ sphere and a reformulation of the idiom of ‘citizenship’.