Resettlement Strategies: For Better or for Worse

High human mobility is a major feature of twenty-first century development. Every year, millions of people leave their homes, whether voluntarily or under-duress. Some resettlements place people in economically or environmentally superior locations. However, in 2014, about 60 million people were forcibly displaced due to conflict, generalized violence and human rights violations (UNHCR 2015, 2). This figure included 38.2 million internally displaced persons—the highest number ever recorded (UNHCR 2015, 23). Conflict reportedly accounts for 60 percent of forced migration; the numbers of people displaced by natural and human-made disasters have been rising over the last two decades with fluctuations from 19.3 million (2014) to over 43 million (2010). Millions more are displaced every year by development initiatives (dam construction and other large-scale infrastructure projects, urban renewal, mining, deforestation, and conservation projects). Cernea and Mathur (2008) estimate that around 15 million people are displaced for “development” annually; others pose that development projects are the single-largest cause of forced migration (Oliver-Smith 2009; Pankhurst and Piquet 2009, 250; Stanley 2004).