Environment and Migration

Introduction

Why a class on environment and migration?

Environmental migrants often appear as the human faces of climate change

Yet very little is known about the way people react to environmental changes

Thus misconceptions and false assumptions tend to predominate

Policy options will need to be developed in the near future, and are already under way.

Outline Session 1 – Jan 20th Presentation of the seminar Session 2 – Jan 27th Presentation of the State of Environmental

Migration 2014 Historical context

Part I Empirical realities Session 3 – Feb 3rd Migration and brutal disasters, from the Great

Fire of London (1666) to the Fukushima accident (2011)

Session 4 – Feb 10th Migration and slow-onset events: sea-level rise, desertification, and deforestation.

Session 5 – Feb 17th Displaced by the state: the case of resettlement.

  Part II Tools and Methods

Session 6 – March 3rd Conceptualising the environment-migration nexus: methodological issues

Session 7 – March 10th Counting and mapping the migrants: quantitative issues.

Part III Policy responses Session 8 – March 17th Migration and adaptation to

climate change. Session 9 – March 24th Legal protection: migrants without status.

No session on March 31st

Session 10 – April 7th Discourses and representations

Case-study is due No session on April 14th

Session 11 – Date TBC Working session on the case-study reports

Session 12 – Date TBC Conclusion: A specific category of migrants? Politicisation of an empirical reality.

Practical organisation

Specific readings and slides will be posted on www.gemenne.wordpress.com

Your active participation is very important

If you need to reach me: 06 50 51 69 99 Francois.Gemenne@sciencespo.fr

Evaluation

Active participation: 25%

Case-study: 75%

You need to describe ongoing migration dynamics associated with environmental degradation in a specific region

Interview scholars and policy-makers Use as much empirical data as you can Formulate policy recommendations