Environmental Change, Adaptation and Migration ― Bringing in the Region

In recent years, migration and mobility have increasingly been promoted as one possible adaptive strategy within climate change scenarios and environmental change, and even constituting a solution for locally problematic situations. This edited collection presents empirical and theoretical insights into the current debate on environmental change, adaptation, and migration by analysing these issues from a regional perspective. Individual chapters focus on countries in the global south which are already subject to ongoing environmental degradation: Sudan, Mexico, the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Ghana. People living in these countries are likely to suffer from growing ecological inequalities. The contributors call for a greater involvement of the local population in empirical studies, for the acknowledgment of their agency, and for a systematic link between development studies and migration studies. The book attempts to overcome the strongly policy-driven discourse encouraging the research community to focus on the regional setting.

Felicitas Hillmann is Professor at the Technische Universitat Berlin, Germany, and Head of the Migration Unit for the project 'New regional formations: rapid environmental change and migration'. She has published in the field of international migration, migrant entrepreneurship and urban transformation.

Marie Pahl is a researcher in the 'Megacities-Megachallenge. Informal Dynamics of Global Change' programme at the University of Cologne, Germany. Her research investigates the competition for high-skilled migrants in Chinese city with a focus on urban transformation.

Birte Rafflenbeul is a researcher in the 'Megacities-Megachallenge. Informal Dynamics of Global Change' programme and a research associate at the University of Cologne. She conducts research on highly-skilled international migration and its impact on urban development in Guangzhou, China.

Harald Sterly is Scientific Coordinator of the research programme 'Megacities-Megachallenge. Informal Dynamics of Global Change' at the University of Cologne. Current research interests include translocality and social change in South Asia and Western Africa.