Governing Scarcity: Education, Social Services, and Host–Refugee Relations in Cox’s Bazar.

• In Event: Student Forum Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Roundtable 18: Educational Access and Inequality

Abstract

This study examines how the prolonged presence of Rohingya refugees has shaped perceptions of education and social services in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Drawing on 47 semi-structured interviews with refugees, host community members, government officials, journalists, and NGO workers, it analyzes how interconnected systems, particularly documentation and schooling, affect access, opportunity, and intergroup relations.
Using administrative burden and relative deprivation as analytical lenses, the findings show that initial solidarity gradually coexisted with perceptions of institutional strain. Increased documentation requirements, staffing shifts, and service pressures altered how stakeholders experienced public services. Nevertheless, across groups, strong moral commitment to humanitarian support remained evident.
The study demonstrates that strain arises less from refugee presence itself than from governance responses to scarcity. By simplifying documentation processes and strengthening coordination between humanitarian and public systems, policymakers can promote more equitable service delivery and sustain positive host–refugee relations in contexts of protracted displacement.

Author

• Muhammad Ridwan Mostafa, Wayne State University