Rebuilding Communities Following Disasters and Conflict-Induced Mass Displacements

Dear Colleagues,

Disaster events such as earthquakes, windstorms, landslides, floods, tsunami and conflicts are among the well-known causes that generate and aggravate displacements. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that 59.5 million individuals were forcibly displaced in 2014, but this amount had risen to 70.8 million by the end of 2018. According to UNHCR, the drastic increase of forced displacement was concentrated between 2012 and 2017 mainly due to the Syrian conflict, other conflicts in the region, conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa and the inflow of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) highlights that Philippines and China have the largest amount of internal displacement due to disasters, with each having 3.8 million newly displaced in 2018, followed by India (2.7 million), and the United States (1.2 million). Following a disaster and conflict-induced displacement, resettement and relocation are integral parts of the recovery process. The most popular aspect of the recovery process is addressing the physical needs of the displaced community which may vary from providing basic necessities such as food, water, sanitary facilities to new houses and infrastructure facilities. Based on that assumption, ways to determine the success of resettlement are discussed, however superficially in some of the literature (Sridarran, 2018). However, this process goes beyond addressing the physical needs of the communities. It also includes addressing socio-cultural, livelihood and economic aspects of their lives (Amaratunga et.al, 2020). Relocation and resettlement often introduces a new built environment for the displaced communities which changes the pattern of the interaction among the displaced community and also with the host community. This will reshape the social system, resulting either in social cohesion or social tension. The way the built environment is reshaped can influence the mental wellbeing of communities and create social cohesion between the host and displaced. In contrast, failure regarding built environment has been recorded based on the inappropriate house design, insufficient infrastructure, and inappropriate new environment resulting social tension among the communities (Jayakody et al. 2020). Further,  economic status of the displaced community (IDMC, 2018), bureaucratic tendencies of the government and issues of discrimination (Annunziata, 2020) are also recorded as reasons for failures linked with changes in the built environment. The built environment has an instrumental role to play in all theses aspects which includes physical, psychological, socio-cultural, institutional, environmental and economic. Accordingly, the aim of this Special Issue is to gather knowledge in rebuilding communities following disaster and conflict-induced mass displacements from the perspective of the built environment.

Dr. Chamindi Malalgoda
Dr. Chathuranganee Jayakody
Mr. Sisira Madurapperuma
Prof. Dilanthi Amaratunga
Guest Editors

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