Human mobility in the context of environmental and climate change: Recent data collection tools from the International Organization for Migration to address key methodological and conceptual issues

This paper outlines recent data collection tools and methodologies that the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been using in order to gather information on human mobility as influenced by environmental factors and their impacts. It looks at alternative ways for collecting and analysing data in the face of methodological challenges related to the multicausality of movements, the voluntary/involuntary continuum in human (im)mobility decisions in the context of environmental and climate change, and the policy and epistemological imperative from viewing migration as an adaptation strategy. The paper finds that certain data collection approaches can be quickly deployed in rapid-onset disasters as well as applied in contexts of gradual, slow-onset environmental change to provide information useful for operational responses to immediate crises and/or for developing policies in response. Some of the tools can be useful in both contexts and may support both immediate and long-term operational, policy and research objectives.     

Re-assembling climate change policy: Materialism,posthumanism, and the policy assemblage

National and international policy-makers have addressed threats to environmental sustainability from climate change and other environmental degradation for over 30 years. However, it is questionable whether current policies are socially, politically, economically, and scientifically capable of adequately resolving these threats to the planet and living organisms. In this paper we theorize and develop the concept of a “policy assemblage” from within a new materialist ontology, to interrogate critically four policy perspectives on climate change: “liberal environmentalism”; the United Nations policy statements on sustainable development; “green capitalism” (also known as “climate capitalism”) and finally “no-growth economics.” A materialist analysis of interactions between climate change and policies enables us to establish what each policy can do, what it ignores or omits, and consequently its adequacy to address environmental sustainability in the face of climate change. None, we conclude, is adequate or appropriate to address climate change successfully. We then use this conceptual tool to establish a “posthuman” policy on climate change. Humans, from this perspective, are part of the environment, not separate from or in opposition to it, but possess unique capacities that we suggest are now necessary to address climate change. This ontology supplies the starting point from which to establish sociologically a scientifically, socially, and politically adequate posthuman climate change policy. We offer suggestions for the constituent elements of such a policy.     

Components of landscape pattern and urban biodiversity in an era of climate change: a global survey of expert knowledge

There is sufficient evidence to show that both humans and fauna are profoundly affected by landscape pattern composition and configuration in relation to adaptation to climate change impacts in urban landscapes. Despite this, global-scale research that ranks which components of landscape pattern play the most pivotal roles in this process is absent. Also lacking is in-depth examination of the potential areas of conflict between biodiversity conservation targets and those that pertain to human dimensions of climate change adaptation goals in relation to landscape patterns. The research aim was to determine how to identify, rank, and weight the most important components of landscape pattern affecting urban biodiversity in the changing climate and how to address areas of conflict between biodiversity conservation and human dimensions of climate change adaptation goals in terms of the spatial patterning of land cover classes distributed across urban landscapes. To do this, a global survey of 87 participants from 69 academic centres involved in at least 325 research projects between 2000 and 2017 was conducted. Of the eight components of landscape pattern identified and ranked by participants worldwide, the three most important components are respectively patch size, connectivity and proximity, and land cover heterogeneity. This research reveals that opinions of participants with experience in conducting research in the Southern Hemisphere in general and Oceania in particular influence this ranking. While a range of recommendations from specialists have been gathered and weighted, there is still much more research required to address areas of conflict between what fauna and humans need in the face of climate change.     

Extending the boundaries of climate change research: A discussion on agriculture

Global environmental change is one of the most significant research and policy issues facing humankind. Although vast financial and human resources are being allocated to climate change research, there are numerous knowledge gaps between understanding climate variations and human responses, particularly in the area of farm adaptation. In this paper, we argue that four issues need to be addressed, in order to narrow these gaps. First, greater attention needs to be directed towards impact assessment. Second, future researchers should consider critical methodologies and theories clearly articulated in cognate disciplines. Third, we need to have an improved understanding of how present agriculture adapts to both climatic and societal forces. Lastly, we need to have an improved understanding of the decision-making process. We address these issues by drawing upon three areas of research: (i) the climate change and impact assessment literature; (ii) the natural hazards literature; and (iii) the agricultural restructuring literature, drawn primarily from the disciplines of rural geography and rural sociology. From a review of this literature, we argue that each area provides an incomplete assessment of the relationship between climate change and agriculture in developed countries. Consequently, we conclude that an approach which situates farm-level decision making in relation to both broad structural (including biophysical) and internal forces, provides for a greater understanding of the nexus between climate change and farm adaptation.     

Securing a Sustainable Future for Children and Young People

This article outlines why sustainable development matters for children and young people, and explores the relevant policy context in England and the UK. It asks whether enough is being carried out by central government to secure a more sustainable future for, and with, today’s children. More is needed at the national policy level to: embed sustainable living principles within a range of policy frameworks affecting children and young people; provide a clear strategy for empowering children and young people to lead change and take action on climate change and environmental issues; and address the impact of environmental degradation on disadvantaged groups of children and young people.     

Sustainable lifestyles for all? Disability equality,sustainability and the limitations of current UK policy

In recent years, various environmental threats have been highlighted in relation to disability. Growing knowledge of the effects of climate change and particular impacts on disabled people have been highlighted by a number of authors, including a recent critique of disabled people’s ‘vulnerability’ with respect to environmental hazard. This article focuses on the issue of citizen involvement with climate change mitigation – and more broadly individual and household-level efforts to reduce our impact on the environment. These more mundane aspects of climate change mitigation, for example through transitions to more sustainable lifestyles, also have significant implications for disabled people. The article argues that disability equality is a key component of sustainability. Limitations are demonstrated in policy designed to address these issues using the example of current UK policy, and it is suggested that policy approaches to sustainability should also be a concern of disability studies.     

Remain,Return, or Re-migrate? The (Im)mobility Trajectory of Mainland Chinese Students after Completing Their Education in the UK

The migration of Chinese students to the UK has long been the focus of academic and policy-making attention. However, what happens to their transnational mobility after their education remains understudied. This article unpacks the migration decision-making process behind graduates' study-to-employment transition. We focus on individuals' on-going reinterpretation of capital convertibility between China and the UK and examine how the meaning of mobility changes in time and in the transnational socio-economic environment. In so doing, we draw on in-depth interviews with graduates who have remained in the UK, as well as with returnees. Our findings reveal our participants' periodic uncertainty about professional opportunities and attendant mobility choices in the context of fast-paced socio-economic change in China and in the UK. The article thus calls for a more supportive post-study work policy environment for international students in the UK, especially in the context of uncertainty about Brexit.     

CHILD CARE AND POVERTY IN SOUTH AFRICA

This article draws on ethnographic research with children and their caregivers to explore the interaction between poverty and the nature and quality of child care in a resource-poor urban community in South Africa. The authors attend to issues such as mobility and “family fragmentation,” the role of the extended family and other networks, and children's contributions to their own and others’ care, all matters that provoke particular concern in the context of HIV/AIDS. The research challenges some of the more conventional interpretations on these matters by pointing to the continuities children experience in what can appear a disrupted care setting as well as the positive aspects of children's involvement in care. It also supports the case for a closer look at men's participation in various child-care roles in a climate where they are often dismissed as absent or unemployed and therefore non-contributory. Future research and policy on child care would benefit from the conceptual approach adopted across this work, which employs a relational lens and encompasses the dynamic contexts in which care is experienced and performed.     

Influencing Mobility Outside Transport Policy

Because levels of mobility and car ownership have risen substantially over recent decades (and the increase seems likely to continue), mobility management is becoming more and more important. Transport policy clearly has a direct impact on mobility and can be used to influence the supply and demand for transport. However, transport policy is not the only way to influence mobility. Other areas of policy making (such as energy or waste policies, for example) are also important determinants of mobility, although the influence of these 'non-transport policies' on mobility is often overlooked when identifying policies for mobility management. In this paper, we show that certain non-transport policies might increase mobility whilst others might reduce it. For example, macro-economic policy and land-use planning might act to reduce travel, whilst EU enlargement and cross-border trade agreements might act in the opposite direction and increase travel. Non-transport policies may also indirectly affect mobility. For example, research and development policy can stimulate the introduction of new technology, which in turn can have implications for the introduction of new transport policy options (such as electronic road pricing) and consequently mobility levels. We present a framework with examples to conceptualize the links (both direct and indirect) between transport policies, non-transport policies, social and economic trends, innovation and technology, and mobility. We then identify some of the potential impacts of non-transport policies on mobility in more qualitative terms, including a review of the role of land-use planning, ICT (information, communications and technology) and macro-economic policies in influencing mobility. We conclude that thinking must change about solutions to transport problems. Transport policies alone may not be enough to manage mobility effectively. The achievement of sustainable transport requires transport demand to be reduced at source by combining complementary transport policies and non-transport policies, including technology. We also suggest that new methods of analysis are required to reflect the true complexity of change in travel that is now taking place. This complexity has arisen from a combination of factors, including non-transport policies, and the range of responses from individuals and firms to this new flexibility needs to be understood.     

Household and economic factors associated with geographic and school mobility among low-income children

Child poverty has been shown to have lifelong consequences, and several policy interventions have sought to alleviate its effects. However, federal school policy insufficiently addresses ‘out of school’ factors, including high rates of residential and school mobility among poor students. The detrimental effects of school mobility on achievement and classroom behavior have been well documented, but the literature on the household dynamics associated with residential and school mobility among the poor is limited. This study uses detailed administrative data from Oregon's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to provide more information on residential and school mobility among low-income children of early elementary school age. Changes in household composition, income, employment, residential address, and school catchment were analyzed over several years to measure the relationship between mobility and household dynamics. We find that Oregon children from low-income families have high rates of residential and school mobility and that family dynamics rather than economic opportunity appear to increase the probability of moving. We offer several policy recommendations in light of the findings.     

Media,Politics and Climate Change: Towards a New Research Agenda

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, and the media have been demonstrated to play a key role in shaping public perceptions and policy agendas. Journalists are faced with multiple challenges in covering this complex field. This article provides an overview of existing research on the media framing of climate change, highlighting major research themes and assessing future potential research developments. It argues that analysis of the reporting of climate science must be placed in the wider context of the growing concentration and globalization of news media ownership, and an increasingly ‘promotional culture’, highlighted by the rapid rise of the public relations industry in recent years and claims‐makers who employ increasingly sophisticated media strategies. Future research will need to examine in‐depth the targeting of media by a range of actors, as well as unravel complex information flows across countries as media increasingly converge.     

Trade unions and climate politics: prisoners of neoliberalism or swords of climate justice?

ABSTRACT

Contemporary climate change politics, dominated by neoliberal and ecological modernization framings, has reached an impasse. This article utilizes literature on the environment and employment relations to interrogate the largely neglected field of trade union activities on climate change. The main findings are that some trade union climate representatives (‘green representatives’) in some sectors have made an independent contribution to climate mitigation and adaptation strategies in the workplace. There is evidence of trade unions instigating transformation change and expanding climate awareness in the workplace. The principal conclusions are that workers have the interest and collective capacity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to address the differential impacts of climate and climate policy, and to coalesce workers to tackle climate change. The recent experience of UK trade unions suggests they have a vital role to play as climate actors and, suitably reconfigured, the capability to renew their role in the twenty-first century.     

Environmental Nonprofit Campaigns and State Competition: Influences on Climate Policy in California

Over the past 20 years, the US Federal Government has been considered to be intransigent in its response to climate change by many commentators and not-for-profit environmental advocacy organizations (nonprofits). An enduring source of pressure on the US Government has been nonprofit campaigns operating at both a state and federal level. Six US environmental nonprofits representing a diversity of resources and prominence were selected for an in-depth examination of their climate-focused campaigns. Given the resistance at the federal level, these nonprofits have undertaken state-focused campaigns to achieve adequate climate policy development. This research examined some climate campaigns in California by the selected nonprofits that have supported, enhanced, and influenced the Californian Government’s efforts to address climate change. The campaigns have gained leverage from existing state competition for economic advancement and political leadership on issues of public concern. In addition, they appear to have benefited from a high level of environmental awareness in the community, a history of progressive environmental legislation, Governor Schwarzenegger’s use of climate change to differentiate his political leadership, and strong public trust of nonprofits. Recent climate-related political pledges and legislative changes at a federal level are convergent with the nonprofit-influenced, state-level developments.     

How Unpopular Policies are Made: Examples from South Africa,Singapore and Bangladesh

In this article we contribute to the emerging knowledge on migration policy‐making in two ways. Firstly, we address the relative lack of research on the gendered nature of migration policy‐making. Secondly we contribute to understanding migration policymaking in postcolonial contexts. Based on case studies from Bangladesh, South Africa, and Singapore, we trace the drivers of policy change in these contexts and how the gendered vulnerability of the intended beneficiaries impacted the policy process. We found that there were four main drivers of migration policy‐making in each of the countries. They were: the role‐players in the policy change process, the debates that shaped the policy change, the research involved, and the political context in which the policy change took place. While our research drew on existing policy frameworks, it also showed that policy development is shaped by complex socio‐political conditions.     

Household technology: Implications for research and policy

If we are to have a fuller understanding of the social and economic context of the family, it is necessary to explore its technological environment. However, few scholars have examined the relationship between household technology and the functioning of the family. This article looks at which academic disciplines address household technology, what have been their findings, and why there is generally a paucity of research in this area. This article concludes with a discussion of the need for more research in household technology and the implications that this research may have for other family inquiry and for policy formation.Cathleen Zick, University of Utah, Richard Widdows, Purdue University, and Joan Ash, Central Washington University, provided helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.His research interests include household technology, consumer policy, and consumer protection.     

Life politics,nature and the state: Giddens' sociological theory and The Politics of Climate Change

Anthony Giddens' The Politics of Climate Change represents a significant shift in the way in which he addresses ecological politics. In this book, he rejects the relevance of environmentalism and demarcates climate‐change policy from life politics. Giddens addresses climate change in the technocratic mode of simple rather than reflexive modernization. However, Giddens' earlier sociological theory provides the basis for a more reflexive understanding of climate change. Climate change instantiates how, in high modernity, the existential contradiction of the human relationship with nature returns in new form, expressed in life politics and entangled with the structural contradictions of the capitalist state. The interlinking of existential and structural contradiction is manifested in the tension between life politics and the capitalist nation‐state. This tension is key for understanding the failures so far of policy responses to climate change.     

Beyond Denialism: Think Tank Approaches to Climate Change

Sociologists have done important research documenting the key role that think tanks play in the climate change denialism movement in the United States, which has sought to mislead the American public about the realities of global warming. Sociologists have not, however, assessed the full range of ways that think tanks are responding to – or planning for – global environmental change. This article proposes a typology of elite responses to global warming, which goes beyond denialism to include (i) limited climate mitigation, (ii) climate adaptation/privileged accommodation, and (iii) climate opportunism. Ultimately, this article provides insights on ways to build upon previous research in both environmental and political sociology to study the interface between elite‐driven policy, climate change, and capitalism.     

Social work intervention to protect children: Aspects of research and practice

This paper seeks to bring together three issues about which I have felt a nagging, persistent sense of unease over the past 10 years or more. They can be formulated thus: (a) Why is there a great divide between the professional debate on child abuse and that about other aspects of child care policy and practice; (b) Why is accepted good practice so often not carried out; (c) Why are the related implications of research so hard to translate into effective practice? These questions become even more pressing in the present political climate and in the context of the Implementation of the Children Act 1989.     

Climate,floods, and migration in Pakistan

This commentary offers a glimpse into the complex landscape of climate-induced migration in rural Pakistan. By shedding light on the interplay between gradual ecological shifts and rapid climate shocks, it exposes the misalignment between climate policies and the mobility strategies of marginalized communities. The vulnerabilities of rural Pakistanis facing climate and ecological shocks, like the 2022 floods, are rooted in the historical mismanagement of land and water commons. The current focus on infrastructure-heavy interventions does not address the rigidity introduced by colonial and postcolonial interventions, which have undermined the seasonal mobility and fluidity of pastoralists, peasants, fishers and the landless in rural Pakistan. Thinking climate and migration together requires us to consider the socio-economic constraints and drivers of migration, burgeoning political conflicts, and the ecological consequences of infrastructure-heavy climate adaptation strategies by global investors and the Pakistani state.     

Social Capital,Knowledge, and the Environment: The Effect of Interpersonal Communication on Climate Change Knowledge and Policy Preferences

Abstract

This article contributes to the literature on social capital and the environment in two ways. First, we identify a relationship between interpersonal discussion networks and assessed and perceived individual scientific knowledge. We then examine if knowledge mediates the relationship between discussion networks and policy preferences about climate change (CC). Using nationally representative survey data, we examine the extent to which an individual’s interpersonal discussion network is related to knowledge on CC and support for CC policy. We find those who discuss climate have higher levels of perceived knowledge, but discussion is not related to individuals’ levels of assessed knowledge. We also find that knowledge does not fully mediate the relationship between discussion and policy preferences, implying that interpersonal discussion may influence CC policy preferences independent of perceived and assessed knowledge. We conclude with remarks about the importance of knowledge perception as well as offer some avenues to extend this research.