The influence of climate change and perceptions of it on people’s migration decisions has received significant prominence, especially for people living on low-lying islands. To contribute to this literature, this paper uses Maldives as a case study for exploring the research question: How does climate change influence or not influence people’s migration decisions in Maldives? Previous work tends to start from a disciplinary climate change perspective, while this study combines migration, mobility, and island studies perspectives, within which climate change sits. As well, rather than focusing on the area around the capital, Male, as with many previous studies, the 113 interviews here were conducted in eight islands across three atolls. The method was qualitative, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews using purposive sampling of ordinary people. Contrary to a view of islanders preparing to flee their islands as “climate change refugees”, the interviewees provided nuanced and varied responses. They rarely identified the potential of future impacts due to climate change as influencing their migration-related decisions. When migration was considered, it was chiefly internal movement seeking a better standard of living via improved services, better living conditions, and more job opportunities. If migration related to potential climate change impacts might happen, then it was assumed to be in the future for decisions then. This lack of influence of climate change-related perceptions on Maldivians’ migration decisions fits well within island mobilities studies, from which climate change perspectives could adopt wider contexts.

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Does climate change influence people’s migration decisions in Maldives?

Responding to coastal hazards is a daily challenge for populations in low-lying coastal areas all over the globe. How local communities develop accommodating strategies for these hazards remains largely under-emphasized. Filling this knowledge gap is vital to connect the big picture science of sea-level rise with the adaptation needs and capabilities of affected communities. This paper contributes new understanding by presenting the results of original, mixed-methods research (a household survey and focus group discussions) that documents the accommodating strategies of communities and households in the Semarang Bay on northern Java. We find that participatory capacity and self-organization are key factors in enabling communities to live in unstable environments. Coastal hazards have become a normal element of live and are not perceived as severe risks. Rather than retreating or gaining permanent protection, people found ways to accommodate to and hence live with floods. This result adds an important dimension to contemporary theorization of responding to coastal hazards. Although the IPCC (2014) acknowledges ‘accommodating’ as one form of adaptation alongside ‘retreating’ and ‘protecting’, it tends to be overlooked as temporary and insubstantial compared with the latter responses. This research finds that accommodating strategies, such as informal loans, are effective means for people to maintain their livelihoods in hazard-affected coastal areas on a more substantial basis than recognized in much of the literature. We therefore argue that accommodating should be distinguished from both long-term adaptation and short-term coping and deserves elevated consideration by researchers examining hazard response modes among coastal populations.

How do households respond to coastal hazards? A framework for accommodating strategies using the example of Semarang Bay, Indonesia

textAdaptation and security framings have gained traction not only to explain the causal chains and impacts of environmental change and/or migration, but also to justify land intensive interventions to address them. Despite progress in the understanding of the complex links between environmental change and migration, academic and policy analyses have paid scarce attention to the ways in which environmental and migration narratives are (re)shaping access to fundamental natural resources and changing migration dynamics in the process. Moreover, in the burgeoning literature on land and green grabs, the impacts of migration narratives on land grabs as well as the impacts of land grabs on migration remain underexplored. In order to fill these gaps and bridge the diverse disciplines that deal with these phenomena, this research uses a ‘variegated geopolitical ecology’ framework to examine the material and discursive interactions between environmental change, land grabbing, and migration. Using a global ethnographic approach, the methodology involves a historical and multi-scalar analysis together with extensive comparative fieldwork conducted in two different socio-political settings: Senegal and Cambodia. Notwithstanding important context specificities, findings across cases show how environmental and migration narratives, linked to adaptation and security discourses, have been deployed – advertently or inadvertently – to justify land capture, leading to interventions that often increase, rather than alleviate, the very pressures that they intend to address. The research shows that despite the opposed assumptions that underpin the ‘migration as adaptation’ or ‘migration as security threat’ narratives, both frames can interact with environmental and climate change justifications in ways that create ‘self-fulfilling risks,’ which make insecurity and maladaptation a reality that extends well beyond the landscapes where land grabs unfold

Geopolitical Ecologies of Environmental Change, Land Grabbing and Migration. Comparative perspectives from Senegal and Cambodia

People in developing countries face multiple risks, and their response decisions sit at the complex and often opaque interface of climatic stressors, constrained resource access, and changing livelihoods, social structures, and personal aspirations. Many risk management studies use a well-established toolkit of methodologies—household surveys, focus group discussions, and semi-structured interviews. We argue that such methodological conservatism tends to neglect the dynamic and differentiated nature of livelihood decisions. Since different methodologies privilege different portrayals of risk and response, we highlight how plural methodological approaches can capture a broader range of perspectives and problematisations. In this paper, we draw on life history (LH) interviews across four countries (Kenya, Namibia, Ghana, and India) to offer one way of expanding current methodological approaches on vulnerability and adaptation. We argue that LHs offer four key ‘value additions’. First, LHs give insights into the multiple and interacting nature of drivers of response behaviour. Second, they highlight intra-household dynamics to demonstrate how people with differential power shape risk management decisions. Third, LHs support explorations of past decisions, present situations, and future aspirations, thus producing temporally nuanced enquiries. Fourth, they provide a powerful analytical lens to capture the interplay of motivations, aspirations, and values on livelihood choices and adaptation outcomes. By adding value in these four ways, LHs challenge assumptions about how and why people respond to multiple risks and offer a nuanced understanding of adaptation processes.

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Exploring methodological approaches to assess climate change vulnerability and adaptation: reflections from using life history approaches

Around 15% of the global population is estimated to live with disability. With the Millennium Development Goals failing to recognise disability issues, the Sustainable Development Goals seek to pro...

Seeking a disability lens within climate change migration discourses, policies and practices

The interaction between environmental change and human mobility is attracting global attention, both in policy circles and in the contemporary literature. This introductory essay proposes using the concept of pluralism to explore the multi-dimensional relationship between climate change and migration and to advance new perspectives and concepts to interpret the emerging theory of adaptive migration. The papers included in this themed section cover diverse issues in this area of research by focusing on the contemporary debate about the ‘migration-as-adaptation strategy’. The papers address six key areas: the role of law in dealing with climate-induced migration, the category of place related to the community of origin and destination, the theme of climate justice and rights, the contribution of international organisations in framing the migration-as-adaptation strategy, adaptive measures developed in the Maldives, and seasonal nomadism in the East Sudan. All are quite different, but all converge in their emphasis on the role of the individual, the migrant, and on whether and how state responses are adequate in the progressive concordance between adaptation and individual capability. This introduction raises a set of salient questions that might catalyse multiple new research trajectories over the coming years.

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Adaptive migration: pluralising the debate on climate change and migration

The concept of intra-regional connectivity is emerging as the rationale for the ASEAN regional project and will develop around three pillars: the physical infrastructure, the institutions and the people. Specifically, the facilitation of the free movement of highly skilled migrant workers at the regional level is identified in ASEAN documents as a primary mechanism to achieve people-to-people connectivity. The paper aims to study the emerging regional mobility framework under ASEAN by focusing attention on the potential impact of mutual recognition arrangements ( MRA s) on professional services as connecting instruments. The objective is to provide new insights into the building of ASEAN ’s regional process by taking the mutual recognition regime as a means to reconcile the traditional prerogatives of sovereignty and new common concerns in the context of cross-border human mobility and economic development. The review of the current evolution of ASEAN MRA architecture will focus on the challenges and promises of the intra-regional cooperation in developing the legal framework by fostering a rule-based organisation. To this end, the analysis will be complemented by an examination of Thailand’s mutual recognition initiatives for professionals in the health services.

ASEAN People-to-People Connectivity: The Role of the Mutual Recognition Regime

Universal access to social protection for migrant workers is emerging as a problematic issue in the implementation of free movement regimes at a regional level. This article focuses on the concept of regional governance as a possible mechanism to address the unsolved challenges of social security regimes to extend coverage. To this end, the article looks at current legal developments in two regional projects (ASEAN and MERCOSUR) to identify a creative approach to strengthen the development of national floors of social protection. The interest of using these case studies lies in exploring whether the regional integration process can play a major role in the progressive extension of social protection rights to migrant workers by facilitating the adoption of social security agreements.

Elisa Fornalé

Papers

Adaptive migration: pluralising the debate on climate change and migration

ASEAN People-to-People Connectivity: The Role of the Mutual Recognition Regime

Global–regional interaction to extend access to social protection for migrant workers: Insights from ASEAN and MERCOSUR