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Introduction: Environment, Migration, and Inequality—A Complex Dynamic

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Environmental Migration and Social Inequality

Part of the book series: Advances in Global Change Research ((AGLO,volume 61))

Abstract

Migration is one of many ways by which people have adapted, and will continue to adapt, to the rapid environmental changes of the Anthropocene. Scholarship on environmental migration has evolved from atheoretical push–pull descriptions of environmental refugees toward increasingly systematic investigations of how migration emerges from complex interplays of cultural, economic, social, and environmental processes. In recent years, environmental migration has often been conceptualized in relationship to human vulnerability to environmental change more generally (especially climate change) and human security . A next stage in the evolution of this scholarship is emerging, in which scholars are examining in greater detail the relationship between environmental migration, socio-economic inequality, and the capability of people to pursue their chosen livelihoods. This chapter traces these stages in the evolution of environmental migration scholarship, and presents a generic model of how social and economic inequality can be both a stimulus for environmental migration and a consequence of it. A short case study of the migration outcomes of Hurricane Katrina is presented to illustrate the workings of the model. An overview of the subsequent chapters of the book is provided, showing how each advances our understanding of the relationship of environmental migration and inequality through new conceptual, empirical, methodological, legal, and/or policy insights.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Some scientists suggest 350 ppm is the actual threshold for dangerous climate change (Hansen et al. 2008), in which case we passed the danger point in the 1990s.

  2. 2.

    Mean sea levels are presently rising at a rate of approximately 3 mm per year (IPCC 2013).

  3. 3.

    The website addresses for these projects are: EACH-FOR: http://www.ehs.unu.edu/article/read/each-for; Where the Rain Falls: http://wheretherainfalls.org; Foresight: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-and-global-environmental-change.

  4. 4.

    It is worth noting that scholars distinguish between coping strategies or mechanisms that are reactive in nature and are enacted to maintain or recover basic human needs, and adaptations that may be reactive or proactive but in either case entail some degree of looking beyond immediate basic needs.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Robert McLeman

  2. Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

    Thomas Faist & Jeanette Schade

Authors
  1. Robert McLeman
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  2. Thomas Faist
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  3. Jeanette Schade
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Correspondence to Robert McLeman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Geography and Env. Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Robert McLeman

  2. Bielefeld University, Center on Migration, Citizenship & Development, Bielefeld, Germany

    Jeanette Schade

  3. Bielefeld University, Center on Migration, Citizenship & Development, Bielefeld, Germany

    Thomas Faist

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McLeman, R., Faist, T., Schade, J. (2016). Introduction: Environment, Migration, and Inequality—A Complex Dynamic. In: McLeman, R., Schade, J., Faist, T. (eds) Environmental Migration and Social Inequality. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 61. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25796-9_1

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