The uneven geography of research on “environmental migration”

Piguet, Étienne; Kaenzig, Raoul; Guélat, Jeremie

doi:10.1007/s11111-018-0296-4

Cited by 132 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 91 publications

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“…In the past few years, this domain has focused disproportionately on what can be considered “precarious im/mobilities,” particularly in the Global South, with funding from the Global North. In their review of the geographies of research in this field, Piguet, Kaenzig, and Guélat () relate this imbalance in research foci to a “post‐colonial imagination—which sees the archetypal victim of climate change as a poor peasant from the South” (Piguet et al, , p. 359). As discussed above, this tendency has been recognized and critiqued in its racial, biopolitical, and postcolonial structures (Baldwin, ; Samaddar, ; Turhan et al, ).…”

Section: A Mobilities Perspective To Environmental Migrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A mobilities perspective on migration in the context of environmental change

Wiegel

Boas

Warner

2019

WIREs Climate Change

104

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Academic, political, and policy debates about the connection between environmental change and human migration have long focused on migration drivers and outcomes, resulting in a limited discussion between the discourses of “desolate climate refugees” and “environmental migrants as agents of adaptation.” These perspectives remain dominant, particularly in policy and media circles, despite academic critique and the recent emergence of more diverse approaches. In this intervention, we contribute to the recent turn in environmental migration research by seeking to better ground and pluralize our understanding of how environmental change and human mobility relate. We do so by offering a mobilities perspective that centers on the practices, motives, and experiences of mobility and immobility in the context of environmental change: When and why do people decide to move—or not to move—in response to environmental changes? How do they cope with migration pressures? Where do they move, under what conditions, and who can or must stay behind? This approach attends to the diverse aspirations and differential capabilities that underlie particular practices of movement or nonmovement, reflecting both individual characteristics as well as interconnections with uneven power relations across local, regional, and global scales. A mobilities approach offers a starting point for an expanded research agenda on environmental im/mobilities. This enables academic analysis and policy discussion of the human (im)mobility‐environmental change nexus to become better attuned to the actual practice and heterogeneous needs of those affected. This article is categorized under: Climate and Development > Social Justice and the Politics of Development Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Values‐Based Approach to Vulnerability and Adaptation

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Section: A Mobilities Perspective To Environmental Migrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A mobilities perspective on migration in the context of environmental change

Wiegel

Boas

Warner

2019

WIREs Climate Change

104

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“…This is reflected in increasing numbers of news stories and reports specifically about climate-induced migration and displacement (Climate and Migration Coalition 2015). Likewise, there has also been a considerable accumulation of empirical evidence on environmental and climate-related migration in academic literature (Piguet, Kaenzig, and Guélat 2018;Hoffmann et al 2019). Given the research topic, which cross-cuts disciplinary boundaries, interdisciplinary collaborations among environmental and migration researchers, geographers, demographers, economists, and sociologists have become more common (Kniveton et al 2008;McLeman 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We combine elements of a systematic evidence assessment with a more reflexive form of evidence-focused literature review. The literature is selected from the comprehensive Climig Database: Migration, Climate Change and the Environment (Piguet, Kaenzig, and Guélat 2018). We employ Black et al's (2011a) heuristic framework on drivers of migration to organise and systematise the evidence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migration influenced by environmental change in Africa: A systematic review of empirical evidence

Borderon¹,

Sakdapolrak²,

Muttarak³

et al. 2019

DemRes

101

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BACKGROUND Despite an increase in scholarly and policy interest regarding the impacts of environmental change on migration, empirical knowledge in the field remains varied, patchy, and limited. Generalised discourse on environmental migration frequently oversimplifies the complex channels through which environmental change influences the migration process. OBJECTIVE This paper aims to systematise the existing empirical evidence on migration influenced by environmental change with a focus on Africa, the continent most vulnerable to climate change. METHODS

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“…The environment and migration A growing body of international migration scholarship examines the ways that climate change impacts affect migration patterns. While hugely important, this line of research is primarily based in the Global South (Piguet et al 2018), and has yet to rigorously consider the Western United States. Yet, we anticipate that this region will not be spared from climate impacts, which already include droughts, wildfires, extreme heat, and flooding.…”

Section: Migration and Population Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Social scientific research on the American West: current debates, novel methods, and new directions

Burow

McConnell

Farrell

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Reviewing recent social science research on the western United States from multiple disciplines, we present a state-of-the-art synthesis for scholars and policymakers focused on the socioecological future of this distinctive region. We address four core topics: (1) Migration and population change, focusing on the movements of people across the US West, and the ways that these population shifts are both shaped by and shaping the rise of 'New West' economies.(2) Environmental governance, synthesizing work on non-federal government institutions' interactions with the environment, including local/regional government agencies, Indigenous nations, and non-governmental organizations-all of which shape environmental quality and resource access for communities. (3) Place, culture, and belonging, which concerns how people find meaning in their environment and locate their sense of place in the region given changing social and natural landscapes. (4) Research methodologies, with a specific focus on blending cutting-edge machine learning, and social network approaches with well-established ethnographic, demographic, and survey-based methods. We then map out a future interdisciplinary agenda for the policy-relevant study of social and environmental change in the US West. Our approach stresses the importance of mixed method social research and a robust understanding of how culture, values, and identities intersect with ecological changes on landscapes to shape the well-being of people and ecosystems.

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The uneven geography of research on “environmental migration”

Cited by 132 publications

References 91 publications

A mobilities perspective on migration in the context of environmental change

A mobilities perspective on migration in the context of environmental change

Migration influenced by environmental change in Africa: A systematic review of empirical evidence

Social scientific research on the American West: current debates, novel methods, and new directions

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