Conceptualizing and contextualizing research and policy for links between climate change and migration

Abstract

Purpose-This paper aims to present a critical review of some literature on climate change and migration through conceptualizing and contextualizing the linkages between the two topics. Much literature on links between climate change and migration tends to downplay ambiguities in the terms and the limited empirical evidence. Conceptualizing refers to the knowledge gaps and the need to understand and detail (even if not agreeing on) conceptual issues such as terminology, definitions,

Local Expert Perceptions of Migration as a Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh

“…The explanations for migration, though, are not always simplistic or one-layered, matching the previous discussion [5][6][7]9,13,64]. Respondent E describes how the migrants they study in Dhaka are mainly farmers and agricultural laborers but "people do not say that they have directly come because of the river erosion or they have come because of flood.…”

“…Despite these studies, for Bangladesh and elsewhere, people moving for environmental reasons do not have a well-defined category in research, policy, or law, so scholars have long used their own work to attempt to provide contextual definitions [7,13,14,57,58]. One of the earlier works [4] defines "environmental refugees" as people who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a marked environmental disruption (natural and/or triggered by people), jeopardizing their existence and/or affecting their quality of life.…”

“…Due to all these interplays and complexities, one single factor is rarely a sufficient reason for migrating, irrespective of how much the migration is from choice, i.e., voluntary, or lack of choice, i.e., forced [8][9][10][11][12][13]. Instead, forces affecting migration decisions and lack of opportunities to decide tend to be multifaceted.…”

“…Instead, forces affecting migration decisions and lack of opportunities to decide tend to be multifaceted. Climate change seems likely to add to already increasing levels and complexities of population mobility [6,8,[14][15][16], although it is challenging to disaggregate the specific scale and scope of climate change related impacts [3,5,7,13,17,18].…”

Here and now: perceptions of Indian Ocean islanders on the climate change and migration nexus

“…Exploring climate change in wider contexts with respect to population mobility, especially within other reasons for population movement, is explored less (Nicholson 2014;Taylor 2014;Upadhyay et al 2015). Even when comparatively comprehensive overviews, such as Foresight (2011), tackle some of the why questions based on extensive literature analysis and data collection, others suggest that underlying, long-term drivers of assumptions behind the analyses remain neglected (Felli and Castree 2012).…”