Cultural barrier and patriarchal bargain in climate change adaptation: evidence from tiger widows in the Sundarbans delta of Bangladesh

The paper offers cultural dynamics as one of the components to shape differentiated climate change impacts and adaptation process. In this paper, we look at a particular community called tiger widows, emphasizing on how the cultural values associated with them played out in a wider historical and political context and how they make ‘patriarchal bargain’ in their climate adaptation process. Tiger widows are one of the underprivileged communities losing their husbands in the attack of tigers inside the Sundarbans Forest in Bangladesh. This community is socially stigmatized because they are often blamed for the death of their husbands. Using a feminist political ecology theory to understand cultural dynamics of adaptation, we mobilized ‘patriarchal bargain’ as a concept to comprehend everyday negotiations that this community makes in their adaptation process. Following a qualitative case study method, the paper includes 22 in-depth semi-structured interviews, 9 focus group discussions, and participant observation conducted between 2019 and 2021 in Shyamnagar and Koyra Upazilas (sub-districts) in the Southwest coastal territory of Bangladesh. The paper shows that culture associated with complex rural patriarchal settings is a strong component to define and shape the impacts of climate change and adaptation strategies of tiger widows. This community makes rigorous and embodied patriarchal bargain at the private-public sphere as well as negotiates with multiple stakeholders in their adaptation process.