Migration as climate adaptation? Exploring discourses amongst development actors in the Pacific Island region

Abstract

This paper investigates the perspectives of a set of actors devoted to development in the Pacific on climate change, migration, and adaptation. While much of the debate over climate and migration is centred around the Small Island Developing States in the Pacific, little is known about how the debate is articulated at that regional level. Drawing on poststructuralist discourse theory and using semi-structured interviews with a set of development actors working in the region, the paper discerns three distinctive discourses on climate and migration. These are (1) a main discourse that promotes international labour migration as an adaptation response and two alternative discourses that challenge the main discourse's views, by suggesting (2) that migration is of marginal importance and engagement with socioeconomic factors that influence Pacific Islands' vulnerability is more pressing, and (3) that out-migration is undesirable but that communities may have to be relocated within their countries. The paper further explores why the discourse on labour migration may have emerged and why it is being perpetuated by actors that originate outside the Pacific region. The paper concludes by suggesting that significant differentials in economic and political resources exist between the main discourse and the alternative discourses. In addition to these empirical insights, the paper adds new findings to the growing literature on the politics of climate migration discourses. Unlike earlier work that identifies a shift from an alarmist to an optimist framing, it illustrates that both alarmist and optimistic imaginaries operate simultaneously in the discourse on labour migration.

Investing in home: development outcomes and climate change adaptation for seasonal workers living between Solomon Islands and Australia

“…As with debates around migration and development, researchers have highlighted both the problems and benefits of environmental or climate-related mobility. They have, for example, variously positioned climate-related mobility as a crisis or, alternatively, as an important way of responding and adapting to environmental and climatic risk (see Bardsley & Hugo, 2010;Barnett & Webber, 2010;Black et al, 2011;McLeman & Smit, 2006;Ransan-Cooper et al, 2015;Remling, 2020;Tacoli, 2009;Wrathall & Suckall, 2016). The milestone Foresight (2011) review into migration and global environmental change concluded that migration can represent a 'transformational and strategic approach to adaptation' (p. 200) not only by improving the coping capacity of communities but also by reducing their vulnerability and building resilience.…”

“…This work points to the ways in which human mobility can shape in-situ adaptation in places of origin as source communities increasingly contend with emerging climatic risk. In particular, some policy research suggests that temporary circular labour mobility schemes might support climate change adaptation in addition to contributing to socio-economic development in source countries (Foresight, 2011;Gromilova, 2015;Remling, 2020). For example, the Foresight (2011) report flagged the potential benefits and opportunities of 'planned, circular migration from countries that are likely to be particularly vulnerable to environmental change' (p. 183).…”

Situating ‘migration as adaptation’ discourse and appraising its relevance to Senegal’s development sector

“…This is particularly visible through the dominant pragmatic migration-for-adaptation and co-development strands. These overshadow (circular) labour migration programmes, which were found to be a main discourse in the Pacific Region (Remling, 2020).…”

“…Adger et al, 2001;Taylor, 2015). Poststructuralist discourse theory has received little attention within environmental migration research (Remling, 2020). We define discourse as a socially shared perspective on a topic, including all social practices and relations.…”

“…Most studies of migration as adaptation tend to focus on perspectives from international organisations (Ober, 2014Hall, 2015, or international climate negotiations (Bettini, 2014;Bettini et al, 2017;Methmann and Oels, 2015;Ober and Sakdapolrak, 2017;Ransan-Cooper et al, 2015;Rothe, 2017). Studies focused on national-level development policy contexts are rarer and tend to focus primarily on low-lying islands and coastal areas in the Pacific (e.g., Farbotko and Lazrus, 2012;Gharbaoui and Blocher, 2016;Remling, 2020), as well as in the Indian Ocean (Arnall and Kothari, 2015), Bangladesh (Geun Ji, 2019) and Thailand (Ober and Sakdapolrak, 2019).…”