Abstract
While those ‘trapped’ or who choose to stay in areas affected by climate change represent a substantial policy issue, there only a small amount of empirical work specifically targeting such populations. The scant attention that is afforded to immobility often emphasizes financial constraints as factors driving (involuntary) immobility. As an essential part of the mobility spectrum, the complexity of immobility in crisis, including its political dimensions, warrants thorough investigation. In response to these gaps, this contribution locates environmental immobility within mobilities studies, its conceptual complexities, and, finally, illustrates the importance of political factors in shaping (im)mobilities. The findings are based on semi-structured interviews conducted in two developing countries experiencing the impacts of climate change. We delve into the socio-cultural and economic nature of (im)mobilities as they interact with political forces, specifically by exploring international bilateral agreements (Senegal) and a relocation program (Vietnam). In political spaces that are dominated by a desire to limit human mobility and (re)produce stasis, we challenge traditional dichotomies between mobile/immobile and sedentary/migration polices by underlining how policy interventions can simultaneously promote mobility and immobility, demonstrating complex co-existing mobilities. Keeping people in place can, in fact, mean allowing the very same people to move.
Highlights
Research on human mobility responding to climate change delineates three objects of study: migration, displacement, and planned relocation
People tended to focus on population movements rather than the lack of mobility, as objects of political and humanitarian concern, in keeping with the idea that migrants or displaced people were the victims of climate change, its human faces (Gemenne 2011)
Lubkemann (2008) study of involuntary immobility in wartime Mozambique did add empirically to our understandings of how immobility occurs in conditions of war, and theoretically moved to decouple displacement from migration, arguing that the involuntarily immobilized experience disruption and disempowerment traditionally associated with movement, and that, migration even in forced contexts can result in empowerment, an important antecedent to narratives on migration as adaptation and trapped populations
Summary
Research on human mobility responding to climate change delineates three objects of study: migration, displacement, and planned relocation. Lubkemann (2008) study of involuntary immobility in wartime Mozambique did add empirically to our understandings of how immobility occurs in conditions of war, and theoretically moved to decouple displacement from migration, arguing that the involuntarily immobilized experience disruption and disempowerment traditionally associated with movement, and that, migration even in forced contexts can result in empowerment, an important antecedent to narratives on migration as adaptation and trapped populations. Some recognize the importance of social networks and lack of affective ties outside the community of origin in hindering migration (and even displacement), while others are more inclined to discuss the choice to stay and voluntary immobilities rather than labelling ‘trapped populations’ (Adams 2016; Farbotko 2018; Suliman et al 2019) In the latter, immobility is not necessarily equated with trapped populations, and place attachment, kinship obligations, and other socio-cultural factors are brought into play. Our exploration of how policy interventions influence immobility are not essentially negative (or positive) and we do not wish to advocate for policies exclusively as ‘trapping factors’ nor as facilitating factors
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