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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Hum. Dyn.
Sec. Dynamics of Migration and (Im)Mobility
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fhumd.2024.1457372
This article is part of the Research Topic Refugees and Humanitarian Support in the Global South: Challenges in Repatriation and Social Cohesion View all articles

A critical analysis of the Factors of Peaceful Coexistence of Rohingya Refugees and Host Communities in Cox`s Bazar, Bangladesh

Provisionally accepted
Abdul K. Khan Abdul K. Khan 1*Md M. Hoque Md M. Hoque 2Muhammad Talut Muhammad Talut 3
  • 1 University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
  • 2 Coventry University, Coventry, West Midlands, United Kingdom
  • 3 University of Southampton, Southampton, Hampshire, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Bangladesh currently hosts over a million Rohingya refugees in 33 fetid, dire, and confined camps, with the majority arriving after the 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state.Although Rohingya refugees have been arriving in Bangladesh since the 1970s, the mass influx following the 2017 military hostilities in Myanmar's Rakhine State marked a significant crisis escalation. Initially, the local communities displayed positive sympathetic attitudes toward the refugees. However, recent evidence suggests a significant decline in social cohesion and peaceful coexistence, with host communities expressing diminished sympathy and growing concerns over the refugees` prolonged presence in Cox's Bazar. This paper, therefore, investigates the factors influencing the peaceful coexistence of Rohingya refugees and host communities, drawing on the perspectives of development and humanitarian service providers in the Ukhiya and Teknaf subdistricts of Cox`s Bazar. The study utilized a mix of theoretical literature and empirical data to identify five determining factors: economic, social, political, cultural, and environmental. Data collection included 18 in-depth key informant interviews alongside analyses of secondary sources from both grey and academic literature. The findings indicate that perceived outgroup threats are increasingly threatening peaceful coexistence, despite the absence of direct conflicts between the parties. political and cultural factors have remained relatively stable, social, economic, and environmental factors continue to undermine the current status of peace. The study highlights spatial and psychological proximity as critical overreaching factors in fostering peaceful coexistence; It concludes that closer proximity heightens integrated threats, while maintaining optimal distance enhances the likelihood of peaceful coexistence. Therefore, the Rohingya response plan should incorporate conflict-sensitive strategies to tackle the adversity of threat factors while maintaining social cohesion and promoting peaceful coexistence between hosts and refugees.

    Keywords: Rohingya, Peaceful coexistence, threat, host, Proximity, Bangladesh

    Received: 30 Jun 2024; Accepted: 06 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Khan, Hoque and Talut. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Abdul K. Khan, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

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