The concept of Trapped Populations has until date mainly referred to people ‘trapped’ in environmentally high-risk rural areas due to economic constraints. This article attempts to widen our understanding of the concept by investigating climate-induced socio-psychological immobility and its link to Internally Displaced People’s (IDPs) wellbeing in a slum of Dhaka. People migrated here due to environmental changes back on Bhola Island and named the settlement Bhola Slum after their home. In this way, many found themselves ‘immobile’ after having been mobile—unable to move back home, and unable to move to other parts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, or beyond. The analysis incorporates the emotional and psychosocial aspects of the diverse immobility states. Mind and emotion are vital to better understand people’s (im)mobility decision-making and wellbeing status. The study applies an innovative and interdisciplinary methodological approach combining Q-methodology and discourse analysis (DA). This mixed-method illustrates a replicable approach to capture the complex state of climate-induced (im)mobility and its interlinkages to people’s wellbeing. People reported facing non-economic losses due to the move, such as identity, honour, sense of belonging and mental health. These psychosocial processes helped explain why some people ended up ‘trapped’ or immobile. The psychosocial constraints paralysed them mentally, as well as geographically. More empirical evidence on how climate change influences people’s wellbeing and mental health will be important to provide us with insights in how to best support vulnerable people having faced climatic impacts, and build more sustainable climate policy frameworks.

/pdf/trapped-in-the-prison-of-the-mind-notions-of-climate-induced-v034mbu3d2.pdf

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

The Hazards of Mainstreaming: Climate change adaptation politics in three dimensions

Barriers and opportunities for social-ecological adaptation to climate change in coastal British Columbia

Coastal communities in Pacific Island Countries are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts including sea-level rise, coastal erosion, tidal inundation, and the intensification of storm surge activity. In response, adaptation projects across the region have attempted to reduce exposure and overall vulnerability to these coastal pressures. This paper explores what happens once these projects reach communities: are effective and sustainable outcomes achieved, or can the implementation of adaptation projects lead to unintended negative outcomes and result in maladaptation? This paper investigates this issue in relation to two seawall projects implemented in communities on Vanua Levu Island, Fiji. We found that the seawalls have not been successful in achieving their primary aim of safeguarding communities against coastal pressures and have instead resulted in unanticipated negative outcomes for land and livelihood security. Of primary concern is the way that seawalls trap water along their landward sides—acting more like a dam—because of the ineffective design and construction of the seawalls and associated infrastructure. This paper concludes with a call to think more long-term about site-specific adaptation measures that actively involve and are driven by local perspectives in the planning, implementation, and maintenance process.

Dam(n) Seawalls: A Case of Climate Change Maladaptation in Fiji

During the last few decades we have seen a rapid growth in the body of literature on climate-induced human mobility or environmental migration. Meanwhile, in-depth people-centred studies investigating people’s (im)mobility decision-making as a highly complex and sociopsychological process are scarce. This is problematic as human decision-making behaviour and responses—including their success or failure—closely align with people’s wellbeing status. In this article, elaborations around why these under-representations of research narratives and existing methods will guide us towards a solution. The article proposes a conceptual model to help fill this gap that is inspired by Michel Foucault’s power and knowledge relationship and discursive subjectivities. The conceptual idea introduced by the article offers as a replicable approach and potential way forward that can support widening empirical research in the area of climate-induced (im)mobility decision-making and wellbeing.

/pdf/no-power-without-knowledge-a-discursive-subjectivities-13lwsdn2kx.pdf

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

This paper introduces the terminology of (mal)adaptation opportunism – a situation in which projects undertaken in the name of climate change adaptation (CCA) are overrun by interests other than the stated or intended objectives of the CCA project. A goal of CCA projects is to reduce poverty and promote social justice. The case of the threat of displacement of the community of Kewunor by the Trasacco Estate Development Company (TEDC), after the construction of the Ada Sea Defense System (AdSDS) of Ghana as a CCA, is illustrative of this concept of (mal)adaptation opportunism. Through a narrative presentation of eight different accounts concerning this issue, I demonstrate how (mal)adaptation opportunism arises and is often motivated by economic interests. This case illustrates how economic interests can take over not only CCA projects but also their maladaptive effects.

(Mal)Adaptation opportunism: when other interests take over stated or intended climate change adaptation objectives (and their unintended effects)

Engaging students in planning for superfund site remediation and redevelopment.

As climate adaptation gains international prominence as one means for addressing climate change, it remains critical that just and equitable outcomes are maintained as adaptation technologies are d...

Kwame N. Owusu-Daaku

Papers

(Mal)Adaptation opportunism: when other interests take over stated or intended climate change adaptation objectives (and their unintended effects)

Engaging students in planning for superfund site remediation and redevelopment.

The discursive construction of adaptation subjects via the Ada Sea Defense System in the Volta River Delta of Ghana