Development and forced displacement

Development‐induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR) is the compulsory removal of people from areas earmarked for development. Globally, hundreds of millions of people have been forcibly displaced as a result of DIDR, and the numbers are rising, from an average of over 10 million per year in the final two decades of the twentieth century to an average of over 15 million per year in the first decade of the twenty‐first century. Anthropologists have been at the forefront of critiques of DIDR, which tends to further marginalize the already marginalized. In the 1970s and 1980s, anthropologists modeled the ideal phases of DIDR. Since the 1990s, anthropologists have identified the factors that compound impoverishment. More recently, anthropologists have shown that DIDR works best when well planned in advance in consultation with the affected communities, and have argued that DIDR should be required to effect social and material improvements in the lives of those displaced and resettled.