Environment and Mobility: A View from Four Discourses

Abstract

Debate and literature on the link between degrading environments and human mobility has been increasing exponentially. There is little concrete evidence, however, of efforts or policies that support the management of environmentally influenced mobility. Through discourse analysis using Q-methodology, this research aimed to scrutinize the standoff between opposing views under a fresh lens. One-hundred and ninety-seven experts from 49 nations completed an on-line survey asking them to sort, by level of agreement, 42 statements gleaned from the literature concerning the environment-mobility nexus. Four very different discourses emerged: determined humanists, benevolent pragmatists, cynical protectionists, and critical realists. The complexity of these discourses helps explain the stalemate while confirming the inappropriateness of one-sided terminology and linear quantifications. Despite diametrically opposed viewpoints, experts unanimously agree that human mobility is connected to environmental change. Dissection of these social perspectives builds a new foundation for the Rio?20 analysis and policy deliberations related to environmentally influenced human mobility.

Mapping stakeholder viewpoints in biodiversity management: an application in Niger using Q methodology

“…Q methodology may be best described as a qualitative exploratory technique, exploiting the statistical approach of factor analysis for the rigorous framing of the analysis of similarities across individual opinions (Watts and Stenner 2005;Lazard et al 2011). This method has now been extensively applied to diverse issues within environmental policy, including the conservation of biodiversity (Sandbrook et al 2011;Rastogi et al 2013), sustainable community-based natural resource management (Gruber 2011;Ray 2011) and climate change (Moriniere and Hamza 2012).…”

Trapped in the prison of the mind: Notions of climate-induced (im)mobility decision-making and wellbeing from an urban informal settlement in Bangladesh

“…Q (originally coming out of psychology) in combination with DA has proved to be a successful way of analysing people's perceptions and viewpoints around climate change and migration (e.g. Dryzek, 1994;Barry and Proops, 1999;Niemeyer et al, 2005;Ockwell, 2008;Wolf et al, 2009;Morinière and Hamza, 2012;Hugé et al, 2016). The power of discourses to produce 'knowledge regimes' is the main focus of a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (Foucault, 1977(Foucault, , 1981Hajer, 1995;Adger et al, 2001).…”

No Power without Knowledge: A Discursive Subjectivities Approach to Investigate Climate-Induced (Im)mobility and Wellbeing

“…What a person feels, conceives and perceives is a reflection of this viewpoint" (Brown 1980, p. 46). When grouping subjectivities together, a shared way of structuring and understanding the world, a viewpoint, attitude or discourse is identified (Dryzek 1994;Morinière and Hamza 2012). This is also why the captured subjectivities must be understood as registered in a specific moment, place and in relation to a specific issue.…”

“…A common critique of a Q-based subjectivity analysis is that it fails to explain why the participants felt and registered the Q-statements in the way they did. In an attempt to improve this, and ensure more detailed insights into people's discursive reasoning, some Q-scholars are combining Q with discourse analysis (Ockwell 2008;Wolf et al 2009;Morinière and Hamza 2012;Hugé et al 2016;Ayeb-Karlsson et al 2020).…”