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Conclusion: Inequality and Migration as Adaptation—Where Do We Go from Here?

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Environmental Migration and Social Inequality

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

Abstract

The chapters in this volume illustrate how the relationship between migration and adaptation is as complex and multilayered as is the relationship between migration and environmental change. In this concluding chapter, we summarize some of the key discussions about inequalities within the environmental migration debate and draw attention to issues such as the role of remittances and inequality within households. We reflect on the preceding chapters, focusing on how the contributing authors have traced and assessed the influence of inequalities on environmental migration in their empirical findings, methodological approaches, and policy discussions. We then compare these with recent theoretical and empirical developments in the broader migration literature. We also consider how social inequality is presently addressed in legal and policy instruments that address environmentally induced migration, and offer suggestions for future research and discussion.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The first project was conducted under the lead of the United Nations University-Environmental and Human Security (UNU-EHS; wheretherainfalls.org/) and the second, ongoing one, is under the lead of the International Organization for Migration (IOM; https://www.iom.int/meclep).

  2. 2.

    The authors stress that these inequality effects differ over region and time. As the incidence of international migration spreads in rural Mexico, its effects on rural inequality become more equalizing over time.

  3. 3.

    This happened, for example, to Dust Bowl migrants arriving in California in the 1930s. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office blockaded the California-Arizona border in 1936, to prevent migrants from Oklahoma from entering. See McLeman (2006).

  4. 4.

    Almost no initiatives exist that address relocations resulting from mitigation projects and/or large-scale adaptation measures (Schade et al. 2015).

  5. 5.

    Because the Nansen Initiative has not yet produced recommended standards or principles, it is not considered further in the following reflections on international norms.

  6. 6.

    See OHCHR, status of ratification interactive dashboard on human rights treaties, at http://indicators.ohchr.org/.

  7. 7.

    Kiribati’s migration with dignity policy is explicitly based on education to export its labour and thus to facilitate migration as adaptation for its population. http://devpolicy.org/kiribati_migration_climate_change20120112/.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Jeanette Schade & Thomas Faist

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

    Robert McLeman

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

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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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Schade, J., Faist, T., McLeman, R. (2016). Conclusion: Inequality and Migration as Adaptation—Where Do We Go from Here?. 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_13

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