Immobility in a changing climate (ITHACA)

PROJECT INFORMATION

Immobility in a changing climate (ITHACA)

 

Principal investigator (PI): Patricia Pinho, Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental Amazonia (Fund Recipient Institution), Brazil.
Contact – Email: patricia.pinho@ipam.org.br 

Duration & amount: (April 2023 –  April 2026). USD 150,000 

Participating countries: Brazil

 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Keywords: Immobility, migration, capabilities, climate change, intersectionality, governance and policy 

ITHACA is a 3-year Belmont Forum project that addresses the overlooked area of immobility (voluntary or involuntary) as a potential mechanism for adaptation under a changing climate. The project will shed urgent light on two specific aspects: the reasons to stay (by choice or constraints) and the reasons people return after being affected by climate impacts. We ask ourselves: what are life chances for those who stay? Are there new opportunities? How much potential is lost or reduced by climate warming? What kind of policies and capacities need to be developed for those who stay and those who return? Are there cases where climate policy support will not be provided for returning people? 

ITHACA presents novel methodologies to empirically study immobility in five case studies of coastal urban sites globally (Bahamas, Brazil, Ghana, Mozambique, and Sweden) led by local researchers and facilitated by the Belmont Forum in each nation. With the Consortium Lead based at LUCSUS, ITHACA is also a collaboration between natural and social sciences with a focus on interdisciplinary aspects of social sciences, governance, and human-centric approaches to climate change vulnerability. Building on the aspiration/capability framework, the project focuses on the evaluation of well-being in terms of people's capabilities to preserve and improve things of value. The focus on immobility is also vital for future governance. Immobile populations will require diverse support and finance to cope with climate extremes and processes. We examine the role of national and international finance and support for immobile populations to develop capabilities and resilience. We contextualize the project within highly vulnerable but overlooked ”hotspots” in coastal urban sites already experiencing loss and damage. The project presents novel policy findings and tools relevant to the UNFCCC Global Stock Take, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 10,11, 13, and 16), and the Global Compact on Migration. 

RESULTS

Migration theory has long focused on why people move, although recent criticism of the field’s “mobility bias” has gained momentum. We need more research on immobility and argues that why people do not move lacks coverage. This disinterest in immobility dynamics has mainly emanated from the assumption that people move if they want to, which presumes that immobility is a static state to how people remain in place or to the “adaptive preferences” that follow unfulfilled aspirations. However, our literature review indicates that immobility is more nuanced, with aspirations and capabilities playing a central role in the decision. In the case of immobility, it is also essential to understand who is in that category and why. 

 

Thus, intersectionality studies are applied (e.g., gender, race, and class considerations of variations in exposure as well as differences in agency, decision-making, access to migration options, and cultural norms). We will examine and unpack the role of non-economic values (such as family, identity, language, and religion) and ties to the territory (forest and ocean) with groups and individuals. The territorial ties lead to livelihoods and ways of knowing and co-constructing places, which can also be a reason to stay. In staying, embeddedness, ties, sense of place, ‘place obduracy,’ religious capital (stay and return), repel factors, immigrant networks (e.g., there are no jobs, people will discriminate), and risk attitudes are some key determinants we will explore. 

 

Several central tenets capture the unique nature of this paradigm. These are: human lives cannot be reduced to single characteristics; human experiences cannot be accurately understood by prioritizing any single factor or constellation of factors; social categories/locations, such as “race”/ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality and ability, are socially constructed, and dynamic; social locations are inseparable and shaped by interacting and mutually constituting social processes and structures, which, in turn, are shaped by power and influenced by both time and place; and the promotion of social justice and equity is paramount. The project draws on the theoretical influence of space and place, describing environmental subjectivities (how people perceive, understand and relate to the environment) and significant existing literature from anthropology on indigenous and local communities’ territorial attachment, such as kinship and social-ecological relations. For instance, concepts such as “country” are used by Indigenous Australians, which capture the human and more-than-human relations in a particular place (sky, land, and water, all connected). There is also the cultural heritage and Indigenous and Local Knowledge, such as NELD, which has been very useful for the project case studies, especially in the case of the Amazon. 

 

In other circumstances, due to climate change impacts and risks, people always decide to stay despite hazards, losses and damages, which sometimes compound and recur yearly. Those who choose to stay are referred to as the “trapped population.” However, this term has a negative connotation, implying that people aspire to move but can't do so for financial, cultural, social, political, and religious reasons. 

 

Thus, it is important to understand that some people stay in voluntary immobility for reasons still poorly pinned down in the literature. The central concepts of our project are immobility, capabilities, and intersectionality, and we are working on three topics: 1) a conceptual immobility model, 2) local factors and capabilities, and 3) politics and governance. 

 

OUTREACH

In Brazil, ITHACA brings novelty both on the topic of understanding the Amazon coastal region risks to people's mobility and migration in the context of climate change. The decision embedded the need to bring visibility to challenges and opportunities faced by local traditional populations and indigenous peoples under a changing climate in the region, especially regarding sea level rise. Understanding the factors such as aspirations and capabilities that underpin people's (voluntary and or involuntary) immobility in the face of climate change impacts and risks is essential to support adaptation strategies. Also, working on the theme of migration and climate change and even considering the nuances of immobility to better understand climate risks for people and propose adaptation solutions has not yet been approached in South America, specifically in the Amazon region. Thus, there is an immense contribution to the theories and policy regarding immobility, climate change, and the capabilities and aspirations why people stay in places at risk. The case study focuses on well-being evaluation regarding people's capabilities to preserve and improve valuable components such as social networks, family ties, and attachment to a place or its culture. This approach can show the limits of people's capabilities, such that the individual remains immobile even in the face of aspirations to move.

 

The Amazon case study is theoretically building upon existing literature on the aspiration/capability framework, used by a previous project financed through the Belmont Forum focusing on Deltas and Climate Change in the Amazon, and the literature emerging from mobility and climate change in the Amazon. ITHACA benefits from the advice of Eduardo Brondizio, who led a project under a prior Belmont Forum Collaborative Research Action. Among the emerging contributions from this previous project on Deltas, discussions on socio-ecological systems and Deltas are quite relevant for the case study in Brazil. The Belmont Delta and Climate Change project led by Dr. Brondizio also held several workshops with different stakeholders in Belém, aiming to connect these stakeholders with ITHACA. Regarding the conceptual framing, some relevant literature suggested the specificities of multi-sited household mobility for the Amazon estuary/delta in Pará State, where the authors describe how mobile is part of the Amazon's people way of life. 

 

A rural-urban circulation index has been used to untangle the concept of a mobility system among Amazonian Quilombola communities (Pará State, Brazil), showing that individual mobility patterns are embedded in the process of multilocalisation, articulating rural and urban areas at a collective level. In this sense, the ability of some families to maintain resource rights in different places is one of the premises for economic differentiation associated with mobility. Studies investigating urban hierarchy in terms of community movements between and across municipalities in the coastal zones of Pará State reflect the mobility dynamics. 

 

Another significant contribution to understanding immobility in the context of climate change in the Amazon is the loss of jobs in food production, including traditional Indigenous livelihoods, and the cascading impacts of migration from rural to urban settings in the Amazon, which affect people's mobility despite the açai boom revitalizing the rural areas of the Amazonia region but not necessarily making the municipalities grow economically. 

 

INVESTIGATORS

Principal Investigator 

Brazil: 

Patricia Pinho, Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental Amazônia (IPAM)
E-mail: patricia.pinho@ipam.org.br