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- Convenors:
-
Lily Salloum Lindegaard
(Danish Institute for International Studies)
Neil Webster (Danish Institute for International Studies)
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- Formats:
- Papers
- Stream:
- Governance
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 29 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel seeks to nuance narratives of climate mobility. It examines how governance and policy interventions, from formal and informal governance actors across scales, influence how climate change is experienced and how households and individuals formulate and practice (im)mobility as a response.
Long Abstract:
Climate-related mobility is receiving extensive attention as the impacts of anthropogenic climate change intensify. Scholarly and policy debates on the topic are, however, often influenced by narratives of a direct, causal relationship between climate and mobility, where climate change drives mobility responses. However, this simplistic framing is questioned by research that examines the role of governance factors in shaping climate change impacts and mobility decisions and practices, including immobility.
This panel seeks to generate further engagement on the role of governance in climate-related (im)mobility. Specifically, contributions could consider:
• How governance and policy interventions (e.g. infrastructure, public services, social protection, climate change adaptation initiatives, natural resource management, livelihood-related initiatives) influence how climate change is experienced locally and how households and individuals formulate and practice mobility as a response.
• The interplay between formal and informal institutions (e.g. international institutions, national government actors, local government agencies, hometown associations, migrant networks, NGOs, traditional institutions and religious authorities) in shaping climate-related mobility options and decisions.
• The role of governance practices across scales in relation to climate-related mobility, not least their possible effects, influences and dynamics.
The panel will include papers from the Governing Climate Mobility (GCM, www.diis.dk/projekter/governing-climate-mobility) research programme, based at research institutions in Ethiopia, Ghana and Denmark, but welcomes contributions from others working to nuance analyses of climate and mobility with a governance perspective.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 29 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This paper seeks to unpack why a Feminist Political Ecology reading of migration is needed in order to understand the power structures that drive climate change and forced migration as well as to reach more inclusive interventions that jointly redress socio-environmental injustices.
Paper long abstract:
Climate change and stresses will be felt by all, but they will not affect all people equally. Multiple, unequal and intersecting social differentiations of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, age, ability and class translate into privilege for some, but disadvantage and marginalisation for others. Despite increasing calls for the integration of gender and social equity considerations, research examining the climate change-migration nexus has often sidestepped gender and/or has underestimated the gendered and social inequity causes, processes, and impacts of migration. However, gender and social relations are key in shaping social tipping points as well as the perceptions of socio-environmental risks. On the one hand, they influence who migrates and why, and how decisions about migration in the context of climate change are made. On the other hand, migration can transform pre-existing socio-ecological inequities, either by entrenching traditional values and norms or by challenging and transforming them. Drawing on an ongoing EUH2020 project, entitled HABITABLE – Linking Climate Change, Habitability and Social Tipping Points: Scenarios for Climate Migration – this paper seeks to unpack why a Feminist Political Ecology reading of migration in the context of climate change is needed in order to understand the power structures that drive both climate change and forced migration as well as to reach more inclusive policy interventions which can jointly redress both social and environmental injustices at multiple scales.
Paper short abstract:
Women's empowerment is generally reflected in household decision-making. We explore the relation between gender equality (in the private sphere) and the household decision to invest in climate change adaptation measures. Specifically, the latter consists of either in situ adaptation or migration.
Paper long abstract:
Whether women are involved in household decisions is an important marker of female empowerment. In this article, we look at whether households with empowered women are more likely to engage in adaptation strategies in response to climate change, and what type of measures they implement. Thus, we take a two-step approach: first, we model the decision to adapt and then we model the choice of adaptation strategy. In order to do this, we draw on survey data from four study areas located in India, Bangladesh, and Ghana. Our expected contribution is to understand how, in different contexts, gender relations can be leveraged to promote adaptation strategies to face climate change. In this way, we could inform policy that aims to enhance female empowerment at the same time that encourages adaptation strategies.
Paper short abstract:
This paper historicises current climate-related migration in Ghana’s northern savannah and southern forest zone. It finds that climate change is intensifying existing migration patterns shaped by colonial policies and prompting new climate-related migration patterns in both regions.
Paper long abstract:
The last few decades have witnessed rising global attention to the intricacies of climate change and human migration. Ghana is seriously affected by the effects of climate change because of its geographical location and weak adaptive capacity, with effects on migration already becoming evident. While climate-related mobility has, for centuries, been part of life in dry zones of Ghana, existing literature on migration in the context of climate change generally lacks a historical perspective. Consequently, there is little understanding of how current climate-related migration is rooted in historical antecedents. To help fill these gaps, this paper provides a historical analysis of climate change-related migration in Ghana. It analyses climate-related migration in both the northern Savannah zone and the forest zone in southern Ghana, which provides an important supplement to existing research which mainly focuses only on northern Ghana. The paper employs the Foresight (2011) framework on environmental change and migration as well as a political ecology perspective and draws on literature review, climate data, surveys of 802 households, and interviews with farmers. The paper demonstrates how climate change interacts with economic, social, political and demographic factors to shape migration flows in both the northern savannah and southern forest zone over time. The paper finds that while climate change has contributed to the intensification of existing migration patterns shaped by colonial policies, new patterns of climate-related migration have emerged in both regions. Based on the findings, we make recommendations for harnessing the benefits of climate-related migration for socio-economic development in Ghana.