The project focuses on understanding the politics of genocide diplomacy in recognising the Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar in 2017, including the consequences on the state and society of both Bangladesh and Myanmar.
The challenge
This research project delves into the politics of genocide diplomacy in Bangladesh and Myanmar and examines the consequences on both nations and affected communities. It aims to identify patterns and biases in international responses through a comparative analysis of acknowledged genocides, thereby contributing to the development of a theoretical framework for understanding the dynamics of genocide denial in different contexts. Additionally, the project explores the psychological, socio-political, and cultural impacts of non-recognition on survivors, refugees, and descendants. By providing actionable recommendations for international bodies, nation-states, and civil society organisations, the project seeks to address and rectify the issue of non-recognition, fostering more robust and transparent responses to future atrocities.
Objectives
The specific aims of the project are:
- To delve deeply into understanding the Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar in 2017, exploring both domestic narratives within implicated countries and the international community’s stance.
- To conduct a comprehensive comparative study contrasting the aforementioned genocides with other internationally recognised genocides. This will uncover patterns, biases, and geopolitical considerations influencing international reactions and recognition.
- To gauge the psychological, socio-political, and cultural impacts of non-recognition on the survivors, refugees, and descendants of the victims. This will shed light on the real-world implications of international silence or denial.
- To formulate actionable recommendations for international bodies, nation-states, and civil society organisations. This will be geared towards addressing and rectifying the current status of non-recognition and ensuring more robust and transparent reactions to future atrocities.
Funding details
The project is funded by the British Academy under the ODA International Interdisciplinary Research Projects programme 2024. This project is funded by the British Academy (Award Reference: OIIRP230024).
Project duration
30 April 2024 to 30 October 2026
Project team
Principal Investigator: Dr Bayes Ahmed, UCL Risk and Disaster Reduction
Co-Investigators:
- Dr M Sanjeeb Hossain – Director (Research), Centre for Peace and Justice, BRAC University, Bangladesh
- Dr Kajalie Shehreen Islam – Associate Professor, Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Dr Umme Busra Fateha Sultana – Professor, Department of Women and Gender Studies, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Dr Palash Kamruzzaman – Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, South Wales Business School, University of South Wales, UK
- Dr Nasir Uddin – Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh
More information
- Read more about the project on the British Academy’s website
- Funding announced for Official Development Assistance International Interdisciplinary Research Projects 2024
Image: The Kutupalong Rohingya Camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, by Dr Bayes Ahmed.
Calls for book chapters
Bhasan Char Island and Rohingya Genocide survivors:
relocation, refugee management, risk, and uncertain futures
Editors
Professor Nasir Uddin, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh
Dr Bayes Ahmed, University College London (UCL), UK
Concept note
Bhasan Char Island has become one of the most significant, contested and understudied sites in the contemporary Rohingya refugee response. Bhasan Char historically administered under Hatiya Upazila of Noakhali District in Bangladesh, but the island was officially declared part of Sandwip Upazila on 17 January 2026 following the resolution of a long-standing boundary dispute. Located in the Meghna estuary, the island emerged within a highly dynamic deltaic environment shaped by sedimentation, tidal processes, cyclone exposure, storm surges, erosion and accretion. The Government of Bangladesh developed the island under the Ashrayan-3 Project as a temporary relocation for Rohingya refugees, officially referred to in government documents as Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals. The project includes cluster housing, cyclone shelters, embankments, drainage, roads, health facilities, schools, markets, warehouses, solar power, jetties and other supporting infrastructures.
As of 31 March 2026, Bhasan Char hosted 33,901 Rohingya refugees from 7,555 families. The UNHCR population dashboard shows that 79% are women and children, 8.4% are persons with specific needs [1], and the overwhelming majority are registered refugees. These populations reflect the wider history of Rohingya forced displacement, including the major post-2017 exodus following military Clearance Operations and genocide in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
The relocation of Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char has generated intense debate across humanitarian, legal, political, environmental and ethical domains. Supporters of the initiative have highlighted improved housing, planned infrastructure, reduced overcrowding compared with Cox’s Bazar camps, security arrangements and opportunities for more organised service delivery. Critics have raised concerns about isolation, restricted mobility, access to livelihoods, healthcare, education, protection, rights, informed consent, family separation, long-term habitability and the uncertain implications of placing genocide survivors on a remote island while the root causes of their displacement in Myanmar remain unresolved.
This edited volume seeks to move beyond simplified representations of Bhasan Char as either a humanitarian success or a failed relocation experiment. Instead, it aims to examine the island as a complex humanitarian, political, social, legal and ecological space where Rohingya genocide survivors continue to negotiate survival, dignity, agency, memory, protection, livelihoods and futures under conditions of displacement and statelessness.
The book will place the experiences of Rohingya refugees at the centre of analysis. It will examine how genocide survivors who relocated to Bhasan Char experience everyday life, humanitarian assistance, mobility restrictions, livelihood opportunities, education, healthcare, gendered vulnerabilities, digital communication, environmental hazards, protection systems, kinship networks, intergenerational trauma, aspirations for return, struggle for justice and accountability mechanisms. It will also explore how state policy, humanitarian governance, international diplomacy and refugee agency intersect on the island.
The volume is particularly interested in the relationship between genocide survivorship and refugee relocation. Rohingya refugees on Bhasan Char are not merely displaced populations in need of shelter. They are survivors of long-term persecution, statelessness, exclusion, systemic violence and alleged genocide in Myanmar. Their present conditions on Bhasan Char must therefore be understood in relation to past atrocities, ongoing denial, unresolved justice, delayed repatriation and the continuing absence of citizenship and rights in Myanmar.
The book also seeks to analyse Bhasan Char as a site of competing futures. For some, it may represent a planned humanitarian settlement with better infrastructure than the overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar. For others, it may represent containment, isolation and a constrained form of life in exile.
For Rohingya refugees themselves, Bhasan Char may contain elements of safety, uncertainty, opportunity, frustration, adaptation and resistance at the same time. This volume aims to capture such complexities through empirically rich, theoretically informed and policy-relevant chapters.
We welcome contributions from scholars, researchers, practitioners and early-career academics working across anthropology, sociology, geography, disaster studies, refugee studies, genocide studies, law, development studies, gender studies, media and communication, public health, environmental studies, humanitarian studies, political science, international relations, urban and regional planning, and related fields.
Scope of the book
The proposed volume will examine Bhasan Char through interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives. Chapters may be based on qualitative fieldwork, ethnography, interviews, micro-narratives, legal and policy analysis, spatial analysis, environmental assessment, media analysis, archival research, humanitarian programme evidence, or comparative refugee studies. The book welcomes chapters that engage with one or more of the following broad questions:
- How do Rohingya genocide survivors experience everyday life on Bhasan Char?
- How does relocation reshape refugee agency, dignity, identity and future aspirations?
- What are the implications of restricted mobility for rights, livelihoods, protection and wellbeing?
- How do humanitarian infrastructures operate in an island-based refugee settlement?
- What are the gendered, generational and psychosocial dimensions of life on Bhasan Char?
- How do refugees use informal economies, digital technologies and social networks to cope with uncertainty?
- How sustainable is Bhasan Char as a settlement within a changing deltaic and climate-exposed environment?
- How should Bhasan Char be understood in relation to genocide, statelessness, forced displacement, non-recognition and the politics of return?
Submission guidelines
We invite chapter abstracts of approximately 300 words, accompanied by a short author biography of 100-150 words. Abstracts should clearly state the proposed chapter title, research question or central argument, methodology, empirical basis and expected contribution to the volume.
Full chapters are expected to be between 7,000 and 10,000 words, including references. All chapters should be original, unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere.
All submissions must be original, independently written by the author(s), and must not include text generated by artificial intelligence tools. Authors are responsible for ensuring the authenticity, integrity and originality of their submitted work.
Contributions may be theoretical, empirical, policy-oriented, methodological, or interdisciplinary. We particularly encourage submissions that foreground Rohingya voices, lived experiences, survivor perspectives and ethically grounded field-based research.
Important deadlines (tentative)
- Abstract submission (300 words with a short bio): 15 June 2026
- Notification of acceptance: 30 June 2026
- Full chapter submission (7,000-10,000 words): 31 October 2026
- Peer review feedback: 30 November 2026
- Revised chapter submission: 15 January 2027
- Anticipated publication: June 2027
Potential publisher
The editors are considering submission of the volume proposal to a leading academic publisher, including Manchester University Press, UCL Press, Routledge, or Palgrave Macmillan.
Submission and Contact
Please send your abstract, short biography and contact details to:
Please use the email subject line:
Bhasan Char Book Chapter Abstract Submission
Short Biography of the Editors
Nasir Uddin (PhD) is a cultural anthropologist and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. Uddin carried out research at the University of Oxford, the University of Sydney, SOAS, LSE, Johns Hopkins University, East-West Center, Washington DC, Heidelberg University, VU University Amsterdam, the University of Hull, and Kyoto University. He is the recipient of the British Academy Visiting Scholarship, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship, the JSPS Fellowship, a Visiting Scholarship at LSE, a Visiting Fellowship at Oxford University, the Asian Studies Fellowship at East-West Center, Washington, DC, the James Social Science Fellowship at the University of Sydney and a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Kyoto University. He has published extensively with the Cambridge University Press, the Oxford University Press, the University of Pennsylvania Press, Routledge, SAGE, Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, and so on. His book “The Rohingya: An Ethnography of ‘Subhuman’ Life” (The Oxford University Press, 2020) was short-listed as the best book in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 by the International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS). Uddin’s theory of “Subhuman” life is widely discussed in the study of refugees, migration, asylum seekers, stateless people, and forcibly displaced populations.
Bayes Ahmed (PhD) is an Associate Professor at UCL Risk and Disaster Reduction. His research experience spans across disaster risk reduction (DRR), conflict and migration, genocide diplomacy, Hydrocide, and climate mobility. He specialises in the intersection of conflict and disaster, with a vision to improve the quality of life of displaced persons, genocide survivors and stateless populations. He is driven by a passion for collaborating with frontline communities, aiming to understand their challenges comprehensively and develop culturally appropriate technologies and actionable policy recommendations to meet their specific needs.Bayes has received funding from prestigious organisations such as the British Academy, Royal Society, European Space Agency, British Red Cross, Newton Fund, UNDP, USAID, and NASA, among others. Collectively, his work has advanced knowledge in DRR, resilience building, climate adaptation, early warning systems, Earth observation for multi-hazard science, and humanitarian challenges. Through impactful collaborations and applied research, his projects have made meaningful contributions to policy and practice on both global and regional levels.
Funding Acknowledgement: This initiative is funded by the British Academy as part of the project, Politics of Denial and Non-Recognition of Genocide (Award Reference: OIIRP230024).
[1] UNHCR. (2026). Joint Government of Bangladesh - UNHCR Population Dashboard Bhasan Char as of March 2026. The Operational Data Portal (ODP), The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/121950 (accessed on 28 April 2026.)
Bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives across geography, environmental politics, political ecology, law, disaster studies, international relations, physical and social sciences, arts and humanities, hydrology, peace and conflict studies, and human rights, this volume seeks to develop a robust theoretical, empirical, and policy-oriented framework for understanding and addressing hydrocide in diverse global contexts.
The book – Politics of Denial and Non-recognition of Genocide: The Case of the Rohingya People – explores the politics of genocide denial and its impacts on Rohingya survivors. Contributions from scholars across disciplines are welcome.