Climate Change Displacement Dialogue Speaker: Climate Refugees: The Fabrication of a Migration Threat
In collaboration with CIFAL York
This series is eligible for students enrolled in the CRS Certificate and Diploma Programs.
Date: Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Time: 12:00pm-1:00pm EST
Location: Virtual - Zoom Webinar
More Information & Registration: https://lnkd.in/gu5fm76b
Climate Refugees: The Fabrication of a Migration Threat
Speaker: Hein de Haas, Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam, the Maastricht University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and Director of the International Migration Centre
Apocalyptic forecasts of massive South-North ‘climate migration’ lack any scientific basis, ignoring evidence that most displacement in response to environmental stresses floods, droughts and hurricanes is short-distance and temporary, and that most vulnerable populations lack the resources to move over long distances. The climate refugee narratives peddled by media, experts and politicians also distract attention away from the political causes of displacement. For instance, the main cause of increased flooding in coastal areas is not sea level rise, but man-made land subsidence and erosion. Similarly, ‘desertification’ is not about advancing deserts but about local phenomenon of land degradation caused by land and water mismanagement. Climate change is real but advances in migration theory – and the aspirations-capabilities model in particularly – reveal that there as many reasons to believe that global warming will lead to less, as to more, migration. In fact, the most vulnerable are likely to get trapped in life-threatening situations as impoverishment will deprive them from the means to use migration move. Genuine concerns about the effects of climate change should therefore focus on those unable to move at all.
Speaker
Dr. Hein de Haas
Hein de Haas is a sociologist and a geographer who has lived and worked in the Netherlands, Morocco and the United Kingdom. He is currently Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Between 2006 and 2015, he was a founding member and co-director of the International Migration Institute (IMI) at the University of Oxford. He continues directing IMI from its current home at UvA. He is also Professor of Migration and Development at the University of Maastricht.
His research focuses on long-term trends, causes and impacts of international migration in origin and destination societies. De Haas did extensive fieldwork in the Middle East and Africa and, particularly, in Morocco. His publications cover a wide range of issues, including theories of migration, the causes of migration, migration and development, the effectiveness of migration policies, the links between climate change, environmental change and migration, as well as issues around racism, identity and transnationalism (see here for a full publication list with links to articles). He is also author of a personal account of his experiences in Morocco.
Moderator
Dr. Yvonne Su
Dr. Yvonne Su is the Director of the Centre for Refugee Studies. Her research is on forced migration, climate change-induced displacement and queer migration. She has worked extensively with vulnerable communities in Southeast Asia and Latin America and the Caribbeans including refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, indigenous peoples and LGBTQ+ communities. Her work has been cited by the international organizations like the IPCC and IOM. Su has garnered over $8 million in research funding, including funding from NFRF and SSHRC. She takes an interdisciplinary, participatory and decolonial approach to scholarship that is focused on developing strong partnerships with local communities, NGOs, and policymakers.
