Presentation short abstract

Coastal communities in Malindi adapt to shifting sand resources and shifting livelihood options as climate variability and urban demand for sand reshape labour. These everyday adaptations highlight how environmental change and development patterns influence emerging forms of social vulnerability.

Presentation long abstract

On Kenya’s northern coast, the Malindi sand-mining frontier is increasingly shaped by climate variability, shifting geomorphologies, and the urban construction boom in Mombasa. Extreme weather, marked by intensified tidal surges, erratic rainfall, and changing sediment flows in the Sabaki River estuary, is transforming local livelihoods while deepening existing inequalities. This paper examines how coastal communities navigate these intertwined climate and urbanization pressures through everyday adaptive practices that are simultaneously resourceful and precarious.

Drawing on distinctions made by interlocutors between “red sand” from siltation, “white sand” that sustains tourism, and “golden sand” used for construction, I analyse how value, labour, and vulnerability are co-produced with dynamic geophysical processes. As declining fish catches and unpredictable farming conditions push artisanal fishers, mangrove conservationists, and ecotourism workers into sand-related labour, sand itself emerges, via its “thing-power” (Bennett 2010), as a more-than-human force structuring livelihood possibilities. These shifts illustrate how climate-affected landscapes generate new forms of dependence on hazardous and exploitative extractive work.

By extending the concept of geosocialit, I propose the notion of geosocial vulnerability to describe how climate change, environmental degradation, and uneven development converge to expose coastal residents to escalating risks. Situating Malindi within broader debates on urban climate justice, I show how community responses to shifting sands both mitigate immediate climatic pressures and reveal the structural drivers, coastal erosion, extractive urbanism, and limited adaptation support, that reproduce inequality. Ultimately, the paper highlights how everyday adaptations in Kenya’s sand-mining frontier offer critical insights for justice-centred and transformative approaches to climate adaptation.