Consequences of environmental refugees: towards a conceptual framework

Allan M FindlayAllan M Findlay

and Alistair Geddesand Alistair Geddes

Centre for Applied Population ResearchUniversity of DundeeDundee DD1 4HN, UKa.m.findlay@dundee.ac.uk

« International Geographical Union »

Hong Kong International Population Conference,

Chinese University of HongKong, 10th-12th July 2007

Image source: Black R (1998) Refugees, Environment and Development (London: Longman)

Paper Outline

1. Introduction

2. Debate over “environmental refugees”

3. Consequences of debate: evidence of new conceptual framework(s)

4. In particular, the “borderland” with work on vulnerable populations

• Debate over environmental refugees has not been

resolved• However, both proponents and critics have made calls

for more research to understand “root” or “underlying” causes”, and to link research to practice

• What evidence is there of this from recent literature?• What are the overlaps—the “borderland” between

this literature and recent work on other aspects of vulnerable populations?

1. Introduction

2. The environmental refugees debate:

• 1985: term became used in reports by several international organisations:Notably El-Hinnawi (1985) Environmental Refugees, United Nations

Environment Program, Nairobi.

• 1990s: debate shaped around the views of Norman Myers and Richard Black

• Key publications:Myers and Kent 1995: Environmental Exodus: An Emergent Crisis in

the Global Arena. Report for Climate Institute, Washington DC

Black, 1998: Refugees, Environment and Development (London: Longman).

Black 2001: Environmental Refugees: Myth or Reality? United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Working Paper No 34, Geneva.

Myers’ view

• Clear causal connection:There are fast growing numbers of people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification, deforestation and other environmental problems. In their desperation, these ‘environmental refugees’ … feel they have no alternative to seek sanctuary elsewhere, however hazardous the attempt

Numbers:- Myers claimed that by 1995 there were at least 25 million environmental refugees, and that total could double by 2010 due to global warming

- There could be as many as 200 million at risk; updated this year, to 250 million

Myers’ view

• Push for recognition:

We cannot continue to ignore environmental refugees simply because there is no institutionalized mode of dealing with them. If official standing were to be accorded to these refugees, this might help to engender a recognized constituency for, for example, those 900 million people who endure some degree of desertification

p. 612 in Myers (2002) Environmental refugees: a growing phenomenon of the 21st century, Phil. Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B, 347 (1420), 609-13.

Prominent in popularising the term:

Myers’ view

New EconomicsFoundation—2003

Christian Aid—last month

1993: Environmental refugees in a globally warmed world, Bioscience, 43 (11), 752-6.

1995: Environmental Exodus: An Emergent Crisis in the Global Arena. Report for Climate Institute, Washington DC (with J.Kent).

2001: Environmental refugees, Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 19, 167-82.

2002: Environmental refugees: a growing phenomenon of the 21st century, Phil. Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B, 347 (1420), 609-13.

2005: Environmental refugees: an emergent security issue. Paper presented to the 13th Economic Forum, Prague, May 22.

Myers Publications

Critics—Black’s position

• Has consistently rejected the conceptual and political merit of Myers’ argument

• Conceptual:– Forced displacement is multi-causal; so the role of

environmental change in forced displacement is by no means easy to determine

– “environmental refugees” threatens to skew understanding towards proximate causes, rather than focussing on underlying forces (political, economic, social)

– Questions actual evidence to demonstrate the linkage which Myers claims

Black’s position

• Political:– “refugee” is already legally defined; concern that popularity

of “environmental refugee” in fact de-politicises causes of displacement

• Also ignores internal displacement

– Potential for withdrawal of asylum assistance:• Especially in developing world; asylum regimes in North are already

strict

– Adverse effects on other policy responses• guided by proximate causes of displacement, rather than an analysis

of underlying causes

Black’s position

• The complex interrelationships involved confound a scientific ‘blueprint’ approach:

what is required in both research and policy is a more flexible, place-specific and yet theoretically informed approach, that is aware of both political and historical context (p.22, Black, 1998)

• Black’s work generally well-received by social scientists (sympathetic to social constructivism and how labels are manipulated by those in power, and suspicious of recommending Myers type of ‘preventative policies), but ignored by development NGOs and most physical scientists

Richard Black:1998: Refugees, Environment and Development (London: Longman).

2001: Environmental Refugees: Myth or Reality? United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Working Paper No 34, Geneva.

Also:Kibreab, G. (1997) Environmental causes and impact of refugee

movements: a critique of the current debate, Disasters, 21(1): 20-38

Castles, S. (2002), Environmental change and forced migration: making sense of the debate, UNHCR Working Paper No 70, Geneva.

Publications

• Both Myers and Black (and others) have called for further research to understand relationships between environmental degradation and forced migration—i.e., the role “environment” actually plays, but the nature of the research to be undertaken depends on what is ‘knowable’ and one’s methodological stance.

• How should the academy (and population geography in particular) engage in this area of concern?

So, what might be the consequences of the debate? …

3. Consequences of debate: contrasting conceptual framework(s)?

Approach A: Policies linked to scientific forecasting, assessment of population vulnerability in exposure to climatic change and promotion of strategies to increase ability to adapt (rather than move)

• Eg analysis of IPCC scenarios makes possible identification of populations most ‘at risk’. Geographers at CIESIN (2006) have mapped ‘Vulnerability to Climate Change’ based on:

a) IPCC scenarios,

b) population sensitivity to climate change, and

c) assessments of adaptive capacity

CIESIN projections of vulnerability to climate change

What would such an approach mean for policy research on environmental refugees?

1) Focusing international resources in countries with the greatest vulnerability (eg in East Arica and China)

2) Targeted policy measures to reduce the scale of environmental migration - increase resilience (awareness progs) - reduce sensitivity (mitigation measures) - increase adaptability (livelihood alternatives) _

3) Advocacy of greater spatial sensitivity in the international migration policies of receiving countries (akin to the way that policies on acceptance of political refugees is linked to a list of at risk source countries)

Problems of Approach A

1. Top down (exports solving the problem to a select number of ‘developing countries) and is of course only paliative

2. Continues to endorse a mono-causal reductionist view of migration

3. Constructs environmentally-linked moves as ‘negative’

4. Ignores social construction of vulnerability

3. Consequences of debate: contrasting conceptual framework(s)?

• Approach B: Some look to political ecology:– as a broadly-defined, geographical approach

– with a characteristic “dialogic” and “interactive” mode of enquiry* with other sub-fields and cognate disciplines

– avoids technocratic approach to problem-solving, with instead emphasis on understanding political role of different actors in influencing social and environmental outcomes

– in consequence, greater support for place-specific / “bottom-up” responses to environmental conflict

* After Zimmerer K. 2007 Cultural ecology (and political ecology) in the ‘environmental borderlands’: exploring the environmental connectivities within geography, Progress in Human Geography, 3(2) 227-44

• Difference between (a) simply accepting “shared importance” of environmental, political and economic considerations, and (b) how environment actually becomes integrated in migration decisions

• Led to interest in understanding local social relations:– in recent migration studies, recognises importance of

understanding migration subjectivity

– and in political ecology, understanding social construction of natural resources and their management

Evidence from recent literature

Evidence from recent literature

• Theorising local social relations draws on Foucauldian theory of power/knowledge

– Power as an active, open, “effect”, productive of new knowledge and ways of knowing which continuously structure the effect of power.

• Example:– Carr, E. 2005 Placing the environment in migration: environment,

economy and power in Ghana’s Central Region, Environment and Planning A, 27 925-946

Problems of Approach B

1. While strong on understanding ‘causes’ is weak on identifying ‘solutions’

2. Unlikely to be resourced by most international agencies because of difficulties of implementing a bottom-up approach

3. Like approach A is at risk of seeing mobility as a ‘problem’

4. ‘Borderlands’ with understanding of ‘vulnerable populations’

“Post-debate” research on environmental refugees shares the same challenges as other research on vulnerability

To add more dense meaning to concepts borrowed from non-scientific discourse and to connect them to wider theoretical frameworks

(Hogan 2002 176, in Hogan and Marandola Jr (2005), Towards an interdiscplinary conceptualisation of vulnerability, Population, Space and Place 11, 455-71.)

Yet “borderland” signifies overlapping ideas, theories, methodologies on which in-depth, bilateral and sustained interaction may be possible

4. Approaches to understanding geography of vulnerability

Hazard mapping of correlates of vulnerability Positivism (CIESEN, 2006)

Vulnerable

Structures Structuraliism

Agency and the experience of vulnerability

Spaces of

vulnerability Political ecology (Zimmerer, 2007)

Strong

StrongWeak

Weak

Spatialcontext

Power

4. Context and power/knowledge

• A relational perspective leads to interesting questions about ‘environmental refugees’ – is the Myers-Black debate a false dichotomy?

• Who constructs environmental refugees as ‘vulnerable’ or a ‘problem’ and why? Might mobility not be a sign of resilience?

• Should there be a search for policies that see environmentally-led mobility as a potential win-win situation for movers and sending and receiving areas?

Summary

• Sympathy for Black’s concerns about environmentally-led migration as often local and multi-causal

• Nevertheless mapping spaces of population vulnerability to climate change holds potential for active policy intervention

• This must not mean excluding a relational perspective that questions why some seek to benefit from the construction of an ‘environmental refugee’ category while others resist it

• Population geographers who recognise that mobility is a long-established livelihood strategy (often related to the environment) are well-placed to argue for a more positive policy framework, based on an appreciation of the wider context of such moves (interacting physical spaces, social relations and relational geographies)