Listing for change? Exploring the politics of relief lists in Bangladesh after Cyclone Sidr

Abstract

Ideal notions of efficient aid are challenged continuously by realities on the ground in the wake of major disasters, such as dire needs, limited resources, and opportunism. This paper demonstrates how ‘relief lists’ can be productive entry points for a systematic inquiry into the pervasive politics of disaster assistance. Through an analysis of qualitative data collected during the five years after Cyclone Sidr struck Bangladesh on 15 November 2007, it examines how relief lists featured in both physical and phantom forms and then developed beyond their transparency-making aims, becoming elevated sites of struggle for post-disaster resources. Three list processes, selected to indicate the temporal, material, and spatial dynamics of relief encounters, are assessed in depth. Although recipients of cyclone relief appreciated its value, the paper argues that list politics also stimulated structures of vulnerability, including inequality. Gradually, relief, as governed after Sidr, also served to restore the differential vulnerability of the country’s coastal poor.