Incorporating perceptions and experiences of violence into livelihood decision-making: a micro level study in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh

This paper analyses the influence of perceived violence on livelihood decision-
making of indigenous households in post-conflict Chittagong Hill Tracts of
Bangladesh following a formal peace treaty in 1997. The study results suggest
that households perceiving high risk of violence spend less on consumption
expenditure and are sending children to school more, cultivating more land
and engaged more in producing mixed subsistence and cash crops. Using both
quantitative and qualitative data this study finds decreasing emphasis on
present consumption, long term investment in human capital, using land more
intensively to earn more cash and move towards creating surplus instead of
producing for subsistence, which suggests perceived violence is producing
decisions which are similar to those advocated in a classical ‘modernization
process’. Findings of this paper are similar to the argument of ‘post traumatic
growth theory’ and indicates a post-conflict ‘phoenix’ factor may be in
operation at the household level in which some income raising livelihood
decisions are made as a consequence of fear of renewed violence. In the short
run, the ‘phoenix’ factor appears to operate through both increased land use
and cash crop cultivation and in the long run through increased human capital.