Since the mid-2000s, a lively scholarship has emerged that links climate change with
human mobility. Several points of consensus have emerged: That climate change and
human mobility are related concepts, as climate change will have impacts on human
mobility; that these relations are complex and mobility decisions will be multi-causal;
that mobilities will be different, with people being affected differently. Nevertheless,
‘climate migration’ has become a field of research and policymaking alike. Frequently,
complexities and interrelations are glossed over in contributions that continue to
strengthen ‘climate migration’ as a concrete phenomenon.
The workshop ‘Beyond Climate Migration’ moved beyond ‘climate migration’ to critically engage with
migration in a world increasingly more complex with multiple geopolitical and
environmental challenges. The main goal of the workshop was to critically evaluate and
engage with current practices in the field of ‘climate migration’ and with different
constructions of space, as well as to develop a better understanding of intersectional
differences and the social regulation of borders for people on the move. We also
provided an interdisciplinary platform in which researchers and migration/development
practitioners could exchange ideas not solely focusing on climate change-migration
relations but on the broader phenomena of human mobility under major environmental
and geopolitical transformations.
