Abstract
AbstractBuilding on our previous work investigating discourses of climate-induced mobility in the UK and US press, this paper addresses the overarching theme of environmental issues and the anthropocene by looking into representations of migration as adaptation in the context of climate change. In particular, drawing on corpus-assisted discourse analysis methodologies, the paper will focus on, and critically explore, meaning patterns of “risk” and “resilience” in a purpose-built diachronic corpus of quality newspapers from the Global North and the Global South between 2010 and 2017. Risk and resilience may in fact be regarded as the defining – though problematic – terms of our anthropogenic era. The investigation focuses on whether and how any significant discursive shifts may be identified in newspaper discourse across the globe and the extent to which the mainstream press reflects this problematicity. Our main findings show that not only is mention of risk more frequent in the Global North throughout than in the Global South media outlets, whereas the opposite is observed for resilience, but also that distinct meaning patterns emerge over time across the different areas of the world under investigation.
Highlights
This paper addresses the overarching theme of this Special Issue by presenting and discussing some findings of an ongoing research project on media representations of human mobility in the context of climate change over the last decade (Bevitori and Johnson 2017, 2018, 2021)
In order to respond to climate change a two-pronged approach involving both practices is necessary; while the global goal on adaptation proposed in Article 7 of the Paris Agreement has yet to be reached, some progress may have been made with a proposal to implement a two-year programme to support countries in measuring and tracking adaptation, as announced at COP26 in Glasgow at the end of 2021.3
As one of the most pressing political challenges of our times, climate change has increasingly become a crucial site for the ‘struggle over meaning’ across different domains
Summary
This paper addresses the overarching theme of this Special Issue by presenting and discussing some findings of an ongoing research project on media representations of human mobility in the context of climate change over the last decade (Bevitori and Johnson 2017, 2018, 2021). While in the 1990s the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned about the potential “threatening short-term” effects of climate change on migration and resettlement in its first Assessment Report (IPCC 1990: 5–6), it was not until the adoption of the Cancun Agreement (COP16) in 2010 that the climate change-migration nexus emerged at the top of the international policy agenda. This was largely seen as a major turning point since countries for the first time formally acknowledged “climate change-induced migration, displacement and relocation” as major challenges the world would face in order to adapt to a warmer planet..
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