Pluralising the climate change-migration nexus: Explorations of environmental im/mobilities, perceptions and politics

Summary

It is widely assumed that climate change impacts, such as droughts, floods or sea-level rise, will cause a significant number of people to leave their homes in the (near) future – although studies show that the relationship between climate change and migration is actually much more complex and diverse. A better conceptualization of the climate change-migration nexus is thus needed for targeted climate change governance. In my PhD, I seek to open up the dominant explanations of how climate change and migration interconnect, to understand them as nested in existing relations of power and, most importantly, to bring local interpretations of the climate change-migration nexus into the conversation. I develop the concept of environmental im/mobilities based on three cases that focus on labour mobilities in the context of drought-affected agricultural economies, on voluntary non-migration in the context of climate hazard risks, and on displacement and relocation resulting from adaptation projects.