Speaker:
David Durand-Delacre
Visiting Assistant Professor – United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS)
Talk title:
Human Mobilities in a Changing Climate
Reflections on the persistent challenges in defining, representing, and acting on “climate migration”
Climate change and migration are two prominent subjects of intense concern occupying public and political debate today. Since the mid-1980s, a growing academic and policy literature has sought to characterise the relationship between them. From the outset, this literature grappled with major conceptual, practical, and political questions. What is the causal relationship linking climate change to migration? Where is climate migration occurring? What responses do identified cases of climate migration call for, and what principles should guide interventions? In this talk, I argue that the answers to these questions remain elusive due to persistent conceptual and political ambiguities: any conversation about climate migration inevitably leads to other conversations about a host of related social, economic, political and cultural challenges and competing actor priorities. Mention climate migration, and inevitably you will find yourself arguing about existing migration policies, related human rights violations, colonial history, land rights, the failures and biases of development policy, and much more depending on the context. In short, “climate migration” is a difficult concept to define, a difficult phenomenon to represent, and a problematic starting point for formulating policy, let alone designing practical responses, even as it points to real events and challenges. To illustrate these points, I draw on my PhD thesis – which explored French international development and international solidarity actors’ climate migration discourses, policies, and projects – and subsequent work I have done at the United Nations University engaging with researchers, journalists, policymakers, and activist networks.
Speaker bio:
I am a human geographer and critical migration scholar interested in the political, cultural, and epistemological controversies arising from growing concern about climate change’s impact on human mobilities. I situate my work broadly within mobilities studies, social sciences of climate change, and geographies of knowledge. My PhD research (2018-2022) focused on how knowledge about climate mobilities is produced, debated, and communicated across academia, government, civil society, and the news media in France, allowing me to identify conceptual and political obstacles hindering action on climate mobilities. I am particularly interested in the challenging work of translating knowledge between the worlds of academia, development practice, and policy-making, especially through non-conventional or creative means like “serious games” and interactive workshops.
This is hybrid event hosted in Geog 229 and on zoom.
