The Curious Case of Bhasan Char: Island Relocation and the Politics of Refugee Containment in the ‘Global South’

On October 9, 2021, the Bangladesh Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a common framework for humanitarian services for Rohingya refugees on Bhasanchar, an island 37 miles from the mainland in the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh’s plan to relocate 100,000 Rohingya to Bhasanchar offers an opportunity to analyze the complex nature of refugee-hosting in the Global South, bringing into focus how a Global South host, rather than being a passive actor, can attempt a context-specific strategy to generate normative and financial support for its role in accommodating a displaced population. This research aims to make three main contributions. First, it seeks to situate the case of the Rohingya refugee population in Bangladesh within the literature on migration diplomacy and refugee rentierism. Second, it seeks to modify and expand on the refugee rentier state literature by demonstrating how a host country can pursue a path of ‘normative modelling,’ rather than blackmailing or backscratching for purely economic aims. It shows that states may seek to set new norms for refugee hosting for the purpose of gaining international recognition and accolades, in addition to economic support. As such, it finds the existing models of refugee rentierism constrained by its roots in realist IR theory, and suggests a constructivist correction, in which identity and norm setting are relevant to understanding the state’s policy choices. Third, in examining the use of ‘internal offshoring’ i.e. using one’s own territory for redistribution of a population (in this case from a congested refugee camp), it problematizes how Global North practices of extraterritorial ‘offshoring’ such as Australia’s use of the Nauru and Manus islands for immigration detention have served as the framework for understanding Bangladesh’s strategy. While the research outlines the grounds for valid concerns about Bhasanchar, an examination of the political economy of land use in Bangladesh offers a nuanced understanding of the island relocation plan. Such an analysis underscores how imposing the border externalization practices framework inaccurately casts Bangladesh as a case of ‘negative norm absorption’ of migrant deterrence practices, rather than capturing how char (island) living has long been a part of riverine Bangladesh’s sociocultural and economic practices and obfuscates the country’s attempt at norm modeling for refugee accommodation.