“Climate Change Is Draining My Body”: Narratives of Dalit Women’s Health Experiences in the Southwestern Region of Bangladesh

The chapter explores how the climate crisis shapes women’s health experiences in four rural Dalit communities in the southwestern region of Bangladesh, which is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. It draws on sixteen in-depth interviews and four focus group discussions with Dalit women conducted in 2023. Women share experiences of physical ailments and weakness in their bodies amid rising heat and shifting weather patterns, and ways in which cascading impacts alter the ecology around them. As well as shrink their incomes and livelihoods, exacerbate existing health conditions, affect food sources, and deepen the inequities faced at the intersection of gender- and caste-based discrimination. While living through the climate crisis, women also narrate how witnessing the impacts produces emotional distress and gives rise to new anxieties as their old ways of living change. The narratives reveal how multiple intersecting crises impact poor Dalit women’s health and overall well-being in a rapidly warming world.