Living with Uncertainty: Ontological Insecurity and Mutual Victimhood in Rohingya–Host Relations

Abstract

This article examines the transformation of relations between Rohingya refugees and host communities in southeastern Bangladesh, documenting a shift from early hospitality to entrenched hostility under conditions of protracted displacement. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork, including in-depth interviews and sustained observation, the study moves beyond refugee-center or host-burden frameworks to analyze displacement as a relational process. Anchored in the concept of ontological insecurity, the findings show that prolonged uncertainty destabilizes the moral and social certainties of both communities, generating reciprocal perceptions of abandonment, insecurity, and loss of dignity. Informal economic interdependence and gendered labor displacement intensify psychosocial distress, translating structural inequality into moral resentment and social withdrawal. Rather than fostering solidarity, shared precarity produces a condition of mutual victimhood in which suffering becomes comparative and competing, reinforcing stigma and dehumanization. The article argues that without institutional mechanisms capable of restoring recognition and ontological security for both refugees and hosts, displacement governance risks entrenching durable social fracture rather than enabling coexistence.