Abstract
We use a new large-scale survey of people evicted from their homes in informal settlements in the city of Colombo. They are forced to move to new purpose-built housing, which is offered to them as partial compensation for the move. The chapter argues that for this housing to be considered ‘adequate’ the move must involve much greater consultation, the financial impacts of the moves must be fully explored, and most significantly, the social context of the uprooted households must be better understood. The broader social network is vital for the successful redevelopment of a sense of community life, and this is where most evicted families are struggling.
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Notes
- 1.
The authors are particularly grateful to Rajith Lakshman, Dhammika Herath, Iresha Lakshman, Mohammed Alikhan and Sunethra Perera who were also involved in this part of the research, but were not involved in the writing of this chapter.
- 2.
The construction of the Southern Expressway, which opened in late 2011, is widely considered a model application of the NIRP where displacement was avoided if possible and, where displacement occurred, compensation was provided and a robust complaints system was effectively operated (Jayawardena 2011).
- 3.
Although in practice a substantial number of these earlier arrivals had managed to sell their purpose-built flats.
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Collyer, M., Amirthalingam, K., Jayatilaka, D. (2017). The Right to Adequate Housing Following Forced Evictions in Post-Conflict Colombo, Sri Lanka. In: Brickell, K., Fernández Arrigoitia, M., Vasudevan, A. (eds) Geographies of Forced Eviction. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51127-0_3
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