Livestreaming
Climate change and contemporary migration
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Research on climate mobility - including its drivers, patterns, and consequences – has been criticised for being somewhat simplistic, ahistorical, and environmentally deterministic. Lately projections of future climate refugees have come under critical scrutiny.
Globally, most climate change related migration is occurring within countries, although in some areas longer distance migration is on the rise. In Central America, people displaced due to climate change have for some time relocated to neighboring countries and North America. In other regions, e.g. sub-Saharan Africa, people increasingly move to places further away from home.
During this public seminar we explore how climate change affects contemporary migration patterns by focusing on the ways in which structural constraints and precipitating events enable and constrain current international migration flows; primarily with empirical examples from Central America, but in dialogue with what’s happening on the Horn of Africa. As theory matters for how we make sense of empirical phenomena, we have invited a leading expert on the structural roots of inequalities and the ways individuals' social and environmental location shape mobility response to such conditions to enlighten the debate, Professor Cecilia Menjivar.
This public seminar with professor Menjívar is hosted by the PATHWAYS collaborative research programme and is jointly funded by DIIS’ Climate Initiative and a generous grant from the Fulbright Specialist Program.
Programme
14.30-14.35 Introduction, Ninna Nyberg Sørensen
14.35-15.20 Climate mobility, migration theory and why categorisation matters, Cecilia Menjivar
15.20-16.00 Q&A